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PR  4860  A2  1864 


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fciA- 


THE  WORKS 


OF 


CHARLES   LAMB. 


e^c 


Cvm 


i-  Frtemari. .  T'^ct.f 


* 


THE 


WORKS 


OF 


CHARLES    LAMB,  z??^' 

*  ■       ■  /By- 


IN  FOUR  VOLUMES. 
VOL.  I. 


s 


A  NEW  EDITION. 


BOSTON: 
WILLIAM    VEAZIE. 

NEW    YORK: 

HURD  AND  HOUGHTON. 

1864. 


■i-«. 


CAM  bridge: 
stereotyped  by  h.  o.  houghton. 

boston: 
printed  by  john  wilson  and  son. 


CONTEISIK 


LETTERS. 

CHAPTER  I.— [1775  to  1796.] 

PAGB 
lamb's   parentage,    SCHOOL-DATS,   AND   YOUTH,   TO    THE 
COMMENCEMENT     OF     HIS     CORRESPONDENCE     WITH 
COLERIDGE 11 

CHAPTER  n.  —  [1796.] 
LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE 29 

CHAPTER  ni.  —  [1797.] 
LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE 51 

CHAPTER  IV. —[1798.] 

lamb's  LITERARY  EFFORTS  AND    CORRESPONDENCE   WITH 

SOUTHEY 74 

CHAPTER  v.  — [1799,  1800.] 

LETTERS  TO  SOUTHEY,  COLERIDGE,  MA^TNING,  AND  WORDS- 
WORTH   100 

CHAPTER  VI.—  [1800.] 

LETTERS   TO    MANNING,  AFTER   LAMB'S   REMOVAL   TO  THE 

TEMPLE 136 

CHAPTER  VII.  —  [1801  to  1804.] 
LETTERS   TO     MANNING,   WORDSWORTH,    AND    COLERIDGE  ; 

JOHN  WOODVIL  REJECTED,  PUBLISHED,  AND  REVIEWED  158 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  Vin.  —  [1804  to  1806.] 

PAGB 
LETTERS  TO  MANNING,  WORDSWORTH,  RICKMAN,  AND  HAZ- 

LITT.  —  "  MR.  H."  WRITTEN,  —  ACCEPTED,  —  DAMNED      195 

CHAPTER  IX.  — [1807  xo  1814.] 

LETTERS     TO     MANNING,    MONTAGUE,   WORDSWORTH,   AND 

COLERIDGE 229 

CHAPTER  X.  — [1815  to  1817.] 
LETTERS   TO   WORDSWORTH,   SOUTHEY,   AND   MANNING      .      255 

CHAPTER  XI.  — [1818  to  1820.] 

LETTERS     TO     WORDSWORTH,     SOUTHEY,     MANNING,     AND 

COLERIDGE  .  .  .  ,  .  .  .  .      283 

CHAPTER  XII.  —  [1820  TO  1823.] 

LETTERS   TO   WORDSWORTH,    COLERIDGE,  FIELD,   WILSON, 

AND   BARTON 301 

CHAPTER  Xm.  —  [1823.] 
lamb's   CONTROVERSY  WITH   SOUTHEY      ....      329 

CHAPTER  XrV.—  [1823  to  1825.] 
LETTERS   TO   AINSWORTH,   BARTON,   AND   COLERIDGE  .      359 

CHAPTER  XV.  — [1825.] 
lamb's    EMANCIPATION   FROM   THE   INDIA   HOUSE      .  .      381 

CHAPTER  XVI.  — [1826  to  1828.] 

LETTERS     TO     ROBINSON,     CARY,     COLERIDGE,     PATMORE, 

PROCTER,   AND   BARTON 396 


THE  LETTERS 

OF 

CHARLES    LAMB. 

WITH 

A   SKETCH   OF   HIS   LIFE 

BY 

SIR   THOMAS   NOON   TALFOURD,   D.  C.  L., 

ONE  OF  HIS  EXECUTORS. 


TO 

MARY    ANNE    LAMB, 

THESE   LETTERS, 

THE  MEMORIALS  OF   MANY   YEARS   WHICH   SHE   SPENT   WITH 
THE   WRITER   IN   UNDIVIDED   AFFECTION; 

)F  THE  SORROWS  AND   THE  JOY'S   SHE  SHARED,   OF  THE   GENIUS    WHICH 

SHE   CHERISHED,   AND   OF  THE   EXCELLENCES   WHICH 

SHE   BEST   knew; 

ARE 

RESPECTFULLY   AND  AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED, 

BY  THE  EDITOR 


PREFACE. 


The  share  of  the  Editor  in  these  volumes  can 
scarcely  be  regarded  too  slightly.  The  successive 
publications  of  Lamb's  works  form  almost  the  only 
events  of  his  life  which  can  be  recorded ;  and  upon 
these  criticism  has  been  nearly  exhausted.  Little, 
therefore,  was  necessary  to  accompany  the  Letters, 
except  such  thread  of  narrative  as  might  connect  them 
together ;  and  such  explanations  as  might  render  their 
allusions  generally  understood.  The  reader's  gratitude 
for  the  pleasure  which  he  will  derive  from  these  memo- 
rials of  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  English  writers  is 
wholly  due  to  his  correspondents,  who  have  kindly  in- 
trusted the  precious  relics  to  the  care  of  the  Editor, 
and  have  permitted  them  to  be  given  to  the  world ; 
and  to  Mr.  Moxon,  by  whose  interest  and  zeal  they 
have  been  chiefly  collected.  He  may  be  allowed  to 
express  his  personal  sense  of  the  honor  which  he  has 
received  in  such  a  trust  from  men,  some  of  whom  are 
among  the  greatest  of  England's  living  authors,  —  to 
Wordsworth,  Southey,  Manning,  Barton,  Proctor,  Gil- 
man,  Patmore,  Walter,  Wilson,  Field,  Robinson,  Dyer, 
Gary,  Ainsworth,  to  Mr.  Green,  the  executor  of  Cole- 
ridge, and  to  the  surviving  relatives  of  Hazlitt.  He 
is  also  most  grateful  to  Lamb's  esteemed  schoolfellow, 


10  PREFACE. 

Mr.  Le  Grice,  for  supplying  an  interesting  part  of  his 
history.  Of  the  few  additional  facts  of  Lamb's  history, 
the  chief  have  been  supplied  by  Mr.  Moxon,  in  whose 
welfare  he  took  a  most  affectionate  interest  to  the  close 
of  his  life ;  and  who  has  devoted  some  beautiful  son- 
nets to  his  memory. 

The  recentness  of  the  period  of  some  of  the  letters 
has  rendered  it  necessary  to  omit  many  portions  of 
them,  in  which  the  humor  and  beauty  are  interwoven 
with  personal  references,  which,  although  wholly  fi*ee 
from  anything  which,  rightly  understood,  could  give 
pain  to  any  human  being,  touch  on  subjects  too  sacred 
for  public  exposure.  Some  of  the  personal  allusions 
which  have  been  retained,  may  seem,  perhaps,  too  free 
to  a  stranger ;  but  theyi^nglVe  been  retained  only  in 
cases  in  which  the  Editor  ^  well  assured  the  parties 
would  be  rather  gratifiei  ithan  displeased  at  seeing 
their  names  connected  in^^elike  association  with  one 
so  dear  to  their  memories. 

The  italics  and  the  capitals  are  invariably  those  indi- 
cated by  the  MSS.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  in  the 
printed  letters  the  reader  must  lose  the  curious  varieties 
of  writing  with  which  the  originals  abound,  and  which 
are  scrupulously  adapted  to  the  subjects. 

Many  letters  yet  remain  unpublished,  which  will 
farther  illustrate  the  character  of  Mr.  Lamb,  but  which 
must  be  reserved  for  a  future  time,  when  the  Editor 
hopes  to  do  more  justice  to  his  own  sense  of  the  genius 
and  the  excellence  of  his  friend,  than  it  has  been  possi- 
ble for  him  to  accomplish  in  these  volumes. 

T.  N.  T. 

Russell  Square,  26th  June,  1837. 


LETTERS,  &c.  OF   CHARLES  LAMB. 


CHAPTER  I. 

[1775  to  1796.] 

lamb's  parentage,  school-days,  and  youth,  to  the 
commencement  of  his  correspondence  with  cole- 
RIDGE. 

Charles  Lamb  was  bom  on  10th  February,  1775, 
in  Crown-Office  Row,  in  the  Inner  Temple,  where  he 
spent  the  first  seven  years  of  his  life.  His  parents 
were  in  a  humble  station,  but  they  were  endued  with 
sentiments  and  with  manners  which  might  well  become 
the  gentlest  blood ;  and  fortune,  which  had  denied  them 
wealth,  enabled  them  to  bestow  on  their  children  some 
of  the  happiest  intellectual  advantages  which  wealth 
ever  confers.  His  father,  Mr.  John  Lamb,  who  came 
up  a  little  boy  fi"om  Lincoln,  fortimately  both  for  him- 
self and  his  master,  entered  into  the  service  of  Mr.  Salt, 
one  of  the  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple,  a  widower, 
who,  growing  old  within  its  precincts,  was  enabled  to 
appreciate  and  to  reward  his  devotedness  and  intelli- 
gence ;  and  to  whom  he  became,  in  the  language  of  his 
son,  "  his  clerk,  his  good  servant,  his  dresser,  his  friend, 


12  PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND   YOUTH. 

his  flapper,  his  giiide,  stop-watch,  auditor,  treasurer."  * 
Although  contented  with  his  lot,  and  discharging  its 
duties  with  the  most  patient  assiduity,  he  was  not  with- 
out literary  ambition ;  and  having  written  some  occa- 
sional verses  to  grace  the  festivities  of  a  benefit  society 
of  which  he  was  a  member,  was  encouraged  by  his 
brother  members  to  publish,  in  a  thin  quarto,  "  Poet- 
ical Pieces  on  several  Occasions."  This  volume  con- 
tains a  lively  picture  of  the  life  of  a  lady's  footman  of 
the  last  century ;  the  "  History  of  Joseph,"  told  in 
well-measured  heroic  couplets ;  and  a  pleasant  piece, 
after  the  manner  of  "  Gay's  Fables,"  entitled  the 
"  Sparrow's  Wedding,"  which  was  the  author's  favor- 
ite, and  which,  when  he  fell  into  the  dotage  of  age, 
he  delighted  to  hear  Charles  read.f     His  wife  was  a 

*  Lamb  has  given  characters  of  his  father  (under  the  name  of  Level), 
and  of  Mr.  Salt,  in  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  all  the  Essays  of  Elia,  — 
"  The  Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple."  Of  Level,  he  says,  "  He  was 
a  man  of  an  incorrigible  and  losing  honesty.  A  good  fellow  withal,  and 
'  would  strike.'  In  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  he  never  considered  ine- 
qualities, or  calculated  the  number  of  his  opponents.  He  once  wrested  a 
sword  out  of  the  hand  of  a  man  of  quality  that  had  drawn  upon  him;  and 
pommelled  him  severely  with  the  hilt  of  it.  The  swordsman  had  offered 
insult  to  a  female,  —  an  occasion  upon  which  no  odds  against  him  could 
have  prevented  the  interference  of  Level.  He  would  stand  next  day  bare- 
headed to  the  same  person,  modestly  to  excuse  his  interference,  —  for  L. 
never  forgot  rank,  where  something  better  was  not  concerned.  L.  was  the 
liveliest  little  fellow  breathing;  had  a  face  as  gay  as  Garrick's,  whom  he 
was  said  greatly  to  resemble;  (I  have  a  portrait  of  him  which  confirms 
it;)  possessed  a  fine  turn  for  humorous  poetry, —  next  to  Swift  and  Prior; 
moulded  heads  in  clay  or  plaster  of  Paris  to  admiration,  by  the  dint  of 
natural  genius  merely;  turned  cribbage-boards  and  such  small  cabinet 
toys  to  perfection;  took  a  hand  at  quadrille  or  bowls  with  equal  facility; 
made  punch  better  than  any  man  of  his  degree  in  England;  had  the  mer- 
riest quips  and  conceits;  and  was  altogether  as  brimful  of  rogueries  and 
inventions  as  you  could  desire.  He  was  a  brother  of  the  angle,  moreover ; 
and  just  such  a  free,  hearty,  honest  companion  as  Mr.  Izaak  Walton 
would  have  chosen  to  go  a  fishing  with." 

t  The  following  little  poem,  entitled  "  A  Letter  from  a  Child  to  its 


PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND   YOUTH.  13 

woman  of  appearance  so  matronly  and  commanding, 
that,  according  to  the  recollection  of  one  of  Lamb's 
dearest  schoolmates,  "  she  might  be  taken  for  a  sister 
of  Mrs.  Siddons."  This  excellent  couple  were  blessed 
Avith  three  children,  John,  Mary,  and  Charles ;  John 
being  twelve  and  Mary  ten  years  older  than  Charles. 
John,  who  is  vividly  described  in  the  Essay  of  Elia  en- 
titled "  My  Relations,"  under  the  name  of  James  Elia, 
rose  to  fill  a  lucrative  office  in  the  South-Sea  House, 
and  died  a  few  years  ago,  having  to  the  last  fulfilled 
the  affectionate  injunction  of  Charles,  to  "  keep  the 
elder  brother  up  in  state."  Mary  (the  Bridget  of  the 
same  essay)  still  survives,  to  mourn  the  severance  of  a 
life-long  association,  as  free  from  every  alloy  of  selfish- 
ness, as  remarkable  for  moral  beauty,  as  this  world 
ever  witnessed  in  brother  and  sister. 

On  the  9th  of  October,  1782,  when  Charles  Lamb 
had  attained  the  age  of  seven,  he  was  presented  to  the 
school  of  Christ's  Hospital,  by  Timothy  Yeates,  Esq., 

Grandmother,"  written  by  Mr.  John  Lamb  for  his  eldest  son,  though  pos- 
sessing no  merit  beyond  simplicity  of  expression,  may  show  the  manner 
in  which  he  endeavored  to  discharge  his  parental  duties :  — 

"  Dear  Grandam, 

Pray  to  God  to  bless 
Your  grandson  dear,  with  happiness ; 
That,  as  I  do  advance  each  year, 
I  may  be  taught  my  God  to  fear ; 
My  little  frame  from  passion  free. 
To  man's  estate  from  infancy; 
From  vice,  that  turns  a  youth  aside. 
And  to  have  wisdom  for  my  guide; 
That  I  may  neither  lie  nor  swear, 
But  in  the  path  of  virtue  steer; 
My  actions  generous,  firm,  and  just, 
Be  always  faithful  to  my  trust; 
And  thee  the  Lord  will  ever  bless. 
Your  grandson  dear, 

John  L ,  the  Less." 


14  PARENTAGE,   SCHOOt-DAYS,   AND  YOUTH. 

Governor,  as  "  the  son  of  John  Lamb,  scrivener,  and 
EHzaheth  his  wife,"  and  remained  a  scholar  of  that 
noble  establishment  till  he  had  entered  into  his  fifteenth 
year.  Small  of  stature,  delicate  of  frame,  and  consti- 
tutionally nervous  and  timid,  he  would  seem  unfitted 
to  encounter  the  discipline  of  a  school  foraied  to  re- 
strain some  hundreds  of  lads  in  the  heart  of  the  me- 
tropolis, or  to  fight  his  way  among  them.  But  the 
sweetness  of  his  disposition  won  him  favor  from  all ; 
and  although  the  antique  peculiarities  of  the  school 
tinged  his  opening  imagination,  they  did  not  sadden  his 
childhood.  One  of  his  schoolfellows,  of  whose  genial 
qualities  he  has  made  affectionate  mention  in  his  "  Rec- 
ollections of  Christ's'  Hospital,"  Charles  V.  Le  Grice, 
now  of  Treriefe,  near  Penzance,  has  supplied  me  with 
some  particulars  of  his  school-days,  for  which  friends  of 
a  later  date  will  be  gratefiil.  "Lamb,"  says  Mr.  Le 
Grice,  "  was  an  amiable  gentle  boy,  very  sensible  and 
keenly  observing,  indulged  by  his  schoolfellows  and  by 
his  master  on  account  of  his  infirmity  of  speech.  His 
countenance  was  mild ;  his  complexion  clear  brown, 
with  an  expression  which  might  lead  you  to  think  that 
he  was  of  Jewish  descent.  His  eyes  were  not  each-  of 
the  same  color,  one  was  hazel,  the  other  had  specks  of 
gray  in  the  iris,  mingled  as  we  see  red  spots  in  the 
blood-stone.  His  step  was  plantigrade,  which  made 
his  walk  slow  and  peculiar,  adding  to  the  staid  ap- 
pearance of  his  figure.  I  never  heard  his  name  men- 
tioned without  the  addition  of  Charles,  although,  as 
there  was  no  other  boy  of  the  name  of  Lamb,  the 
addition  was  unnecessary ;  but  there  was  an  implied 
kindness  in  it,  and  it  was  a  proof  that  his  gentle  man- 
ners excited  that  kindness." 


PARENTAGE,   SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND   YOUTH.  15 

"  His  delicate  fi-ame  and  his  difficulty  of  utterance, 
which  was  increased   by  agitation,   unfitted   him   for 
joining  in  any  boisterous  sport.     The  description  which 
hi  gives,  in  his  '  Recollections  of  Christ's  Hospital,'  of 
thfe  habits  and  feelings  of  the  schoolboy,  is  a  true  one 
in  general,  but  is  more  particularly  a  delineation  of 
himself,  —  the  feelings  were  all  in  his  own  heart,  —  the 
portrait  was  his  own :  '  While  others  were  all  fire  and 
play,  he  stole  along  with  all  the  self-concentration  of  a 
young  monk.'     These  habits  and  feelings  were  awak- 
ened and  cherished  in  him  by  pecuhar  circumstances  : 
he  had  been  born  and  bred  in  the  Inner  Temple ;  and 
his  parents  continued  to  reside  there  while  he  was  at 
school,  so  that  he  passed  from  cloister  to  cloister,  and 
this  was  all  the  change  his  young  min$  ever  knew. 
On  every  half-holiday   (and   there   were  two  in   the 
week)  in  ten  minutes  he  was  in  the  gardens,  on  the 
terrace,  or  at  the  fountain  of  the  Temple  :  here  was 
his  home,  here  his  recreation  ;  and  the  influence  they 
had  on  his  infant  mind  is  vividly  shown  in  liis  descrip- 
tion of  the  Old  Benchers.     He  says,  '  I  was  born  and 
passed  the  first  seven  years  of  my  life  in  the  Temple  : ' 
he  might  have  added,  that  here  he  passed  a  great  por- 
tion of  the  second  seven  years  of  his  hfe,  a  portion 
which  mixed  itself  with  all  his  habits  and  enjoyments, 
and  gave  a  bias  to  the  whole.     Here  he  found  a  happy 
home,  affectionate  parents,  and  a  sister  who  watched 
over  him  to  the  latest  hour  of  his  existence  (God  be 
with  her !)  with  the  tenderest  solicitude  ;  and  here  he 
had  access  to  the  library  of  Mr.  Salt,  one  of  the  Bench- 
ers, to  whose  memory  his  pen  has  given,  in  return  for 
this  and  greater  favors,  —  I  do  not  think  it  extravagant 
to  sav  —  immortalitv.     To  use  his  own  language,  here 


16  PARENTAGE,   SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND  YOUTH. 

he  '  was  tumbled  into  a  spacious  closet  of  good  old  Eng- 
lish reading,  where  he  browsed  at  will  upon  that  fair 
and  wholesome  pasturage.'  He  applied  these  words  to 
his  sister ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  they  '  browsed '  to- 
gether ;  they  had  walked  hand  in  hand  from  a  time 
'extending  beyond  the  period  of  their  memory.'  " 

When  Lamb  quitted  school,  he  was  in  the  lower 
division  of  the  second  class,  —  which  in  the  language 
of  the  school  is  termed  "being  in  Greek  Form,  but 
not  Deputy  Grecian."  He  had  read  Virgil,  Sallust, 
Terence,  selections  from  Lucian's  Dialogues,  and  Xen- 
ophon  ;  and  had  evinced  considerable  skill  in  the 
niceties  of  Latin  composition,  both  in  prose  and  verse. 
His  docility  and  aptitude  for  the  attainment  of  classical 
knowledge  would  have  insured  him  an  exhibition  ;  but 
to  this  the  impediment  in  his  speech  proved  an  insu- 
perable obstacle.  The  exhibitions  were  given  under 
the  implied,  if  not  expressed,  condition  of  entering  into 
the  Church  ;  the  whole  course  of  education  was  pre- 
paratory to  that  end ;  and  therefore  Lamb,  who  was 
unfitted  by  nature  for  the  clerical  profession,  was  not 
adopted  into  the  class  which  led  to  it,  and  quitted  school 
to  pursue  the  uncongenial  labor  of  the  "desk's  dull 
wood."  To  this  apparently  hard  lot  he  submitted  with 
cheerftilness,  and  saw  his  schoolfellows  of  his  own  stand- 
ing depart,  one  after  another,  for  the  University  without 
a  murmur.  This  acquiescence  in  his  different  fortune 
must  have  been  a  hard  trial  for  the  sweetness  of  his 
disposition  ;  as  he  always,  in  after-life,  regarded  the 
ancient  seats  of  learning  with  the  fondness  of  one  who 
had  been  hardly  divorced  from  them.  He  delighted, 
when  other  duties  did  not  hinder,  to  pass  his  vacations 
in  their  neighborhood,  and  indulge  in  that  fancied  as- 


PARENTAGE,   SCHOOL-DAYS,   AND   YOUTH.  17 

sociation  with  them  which  he  has  so  beautifully  mir- 
rored in  his  "Somiet  written  at  Cambrido-e."*  What 
worldly  success  can,  indeed,  ever  compensate  for  the 
want  of  timely  nurture  beneath  the  shade  of  one  of 
these  venerable  institutions, — for  the  sense  of  antiquity 
shading,  not  checking,  the  joyous  inpulses  of  opening 
manhood,  —  for  the  refinement  and  the  grace  there  in- 
terfused into  the  long  labor  of  ambitious  study, — for 
young  friendships  consecrated  by  the  associations  of 
long  past  time  ;  and  for  liberal  emulation,  crowned  by 
successes  restrained  from  ungenerous  and  selfish  pride 
by  palpable  symbols  of  the  genius  and  the  learning  of 
ages  ? 

On  23d  November,  1789,  Lamb  finally  quitted 
Christ's  Hospital  for  the  abode  of  his  parents,  who  still 
resided  in  the  Temple.  At  first  he  was  employed  in 
the  South-Sea  House,  under  his  brother  John  ;  but  on 
the  5th  April,  1792,  he  obtained  an  appointment  in  the 
accountant's  office  of  the  East  India  Company.  His 
salary,  though  then  small,  was  a  welcome  addition  to 
the  scanty  means  of  his  parents  ;  who  now  were  xm~ 
able,  by  their  own  exertions,  to  increase  it,  his  mother 

*  I  was  not  train'd  in  academic  bowers, 
And  to  those  learned  streams  I  nothing  owe 
"Which  copious  from  those  twin  fair  founts  do  flow; 
Mine  have  been  anything  but  studious  hours. 
Yet  can  I  fancy,  wandering  'mid  thy  towers, 
Myself  a  nursling,  Granta,  of  thy  lap; 
My  brow  seems  tightening  with  the  doctor's  cap, 
And  I  walk  gowned;  feel  unusual  powers. 
Strange  forms  of  logic  clotiie  my  admiring  speech; 
Old  Ramus'  ghost  is  busy  at  mj'  brain; 
And  my  skull  teems  with  notions  infinite. 
Be  still,  ye  reeds  of  Camus,  while  I  teach 
Truths  which  transcend  the  searching  schoolmen's  vein, 
And  half  had  stagger'd  that  stout  Stagirite! 

VOL.  I.  2 


18  PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND   YOUTH. 

being  in  ill  health,  which  confined  her  to  her  bed,  and 
his  father  sinking  into  dotage.  On  their  comfort,  how- 
ever, this,  and  what  was  more  precious  to  him,  his  little 
leisure,  were  freely  bestowed;  and  his  recreations  were^ 
confined  to  a  delightful  visit  to  the  two-shilling  gallery 
of  the  theatre,  in  company  with  his  sister,  and  an  occa- 
sional supper  with  some  of  his  schoolmates,  when  in 
town,  from  Cambridge.  On  one  of  these  latter  occa- 
sions he  obtained  the  appellation  of  Ciuy,  by  which  he 
was  always  called  among  them  ;  but  of  which  few  of 
his  late  friends  heard  till  after  his  death.  "  In  the  first 
year  of  his  clerkship,"  says  Mr.  Le  Grice,  in  the  com- 
munication with  which  he  favored  me,  "  Lamb  spent 
the  evenino;  of  the  5th  November  with  some  of  his  for- 
mer  schoolfellows,  who,  being  amused  with  the  partic- 
ularly large  and  flapping  brim  of  his  round  hat,  pinned 
it  up  on  the  sides  in  the  form  of  a  cocked-hat.  Lamb 
made  no  alteration  in  it,  but  walked  home  in  his  usual 
sauntering  gait  towards  the  Temple.  As  he  was  going 
down  Ludgate-hill,  some  gay  young  men,  who  seemed 
riot  to  have  passed  the  London  Tavern  without  resting, 
exclaimed,  '  The  veritable  Guy  !  —  no  man  of  straw  !  ' 
and  with  this  exclamation  they  took  him  up,  making  a 
chair  with  their  arms,  carried  him,  seated  him  on  a  post 
in  St.  Paul's  churchyard,  and  there  left  him.  This 
story  Lamb  told  so  seriously,  that  the  truth  of  it  was 
never  doubted.  He  wore  his  three-cornered  hat  many 
evenings,  and  retained  the  name  of  Guy  ever  after. 
Like  Nym,  he  quietly  sympathized  in  the  fun,  and 
seemed  to  say,  '  that  was  the  humor  of  it.'  A  clef^ 
gyman  of  the  City  lately  wrote  to  me,  '  I  have  no 
recollection  of  Lamb.  There  was  a  gentleman  called 
Guy,   to  whom  you   once   introduced   me,   and   with 


1 


PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND  YOUTH.      19 

whom  I  have  occasionally  interchanged  nods  for  more 
than  thirty  years ;  but  how  is  it  that  I  never  met  Mr. 
Lamb  ?  If  I  was  ever  introduced  to  him,  I  wonder 
.that  we  never  came  in  contact  during  my  residence  for 
ten  years  in  Edmonton.'  Imagine  this  gentleman's 
surprise  when  I  informed  him  that  his  nods  to  Mr. 
Guy  had  been  constantly  reciprocated  by  Mr.  Lamb !  " 
During  these  years  Lamb's  most  frequent  companion 
was  James  White,  or  rather,  Jem  White,  as  he  always 
called  him.  Lamb  always  insisted  that  for  hearty  joy- 
ous humor,  tinged  with  Shaksperian  fancy,  Jem  never 
had  an  equal.  "  Jem  White  !  "  said  he,  to  Mr.  Le 
Grice,  when  they  met  for  the  last  time,  after  many 
vears'  absence,  at  the  Bell  at  Edmonton,  in  June, 
1833,  "  there  never  was  his  like  !  We  never  shall  see 
such  days  as  those  in  which  Jem  flourished !  "  All 
that  now  remains  of  Jem  is  the  celebration  of  the  sup- 
pers which  he  gave  the  young  chimney-sweepers  in  the 
Elia  of  his  friend,  and  a  thin  duodecimo  volume,  which 
he  published  in  1796,  under  the  title  of  the  "  Letters 
of  Sir  John  Falstaff,  with  a  dedication  (printed  in  black- 
letter)  to  Master  Samuel  Irelaunde,"  which  those  who 
knew  Lamb  at  the  time  believed  to  be  his.  "  White's 
Letters,"  said  Lamb,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  about  this 
time,  "  are  near  publication.  His  frontispiece  is  a  good 
conceit :  Sir  John  learning  to  dance,  to  please  jNIadame 
Page,  in  dress  of  doublet,  &c.,  from  the  upper  half,  and 
modern  pantaloons,  with  shoes  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, from  the  lower  half,  and  the  whole  work  is  fiill 
of  goodly  quips  and  rare  fancies,  '  all  deftly  masked 
like  hoar  antiquity,'  —  much  superior  to  Dr.  Kenrick's 
'  Falstaff 's  Wedding.'  "  The  work  was  neglected,  al- 
though Lamb  exerted  all  the  influence  he  subsequently 


20  PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND   YOUTH. 

acquired  with  more  popular  writers  to  obtain  for  it 
favorable  notices,  as  will  be  seen  from  various  passages 
in  his  letters.  He  stuck,  however,  gallantly  by  his 
favorite  prot(3g^  ;  and  even  when  he  could  little  afford 
to  disburse  sixpence,  he  made  a  point  of  buying  a  copy 
of  the  book  whenever  he  discovered  one  amidst  the 
refuse  of  a  bookseller's  stall,  and  would  present  it  to  a 
friend  in  the  hope  of  making  a  convert.  He  gave  me 
one  of  these  copies  soon  after  I  became  acquainted  with 
him,  stating  that  he  had  purchased  it  in  the  morning 
for  sixpence,  and  assuring  me  I  should  enjoy  a  rare 
treat  in  the  perusal ;  but  if  I  must  confess  the  truth, 
the  mask  of  qiiaintness  was  so  closely  worn,  that  it 
nearly  concealed  the  humor.  To  Lamb  it  was,  doubt- 
less, vivified  by  the  eye  and  voice  of  his  old  boon  com- 
panion, forming  to  him  an  undying  commentary ;  with- 
out which  it  was  comparatively  spiritless.  Alas  !  how 
many  even  of  his  own  most  delicate  fancies,  rich  as 
they  are  in  feeling  and  in  wisdom,  will  be  lost  to  those 
who  have  not  present  to  them  the  sweet  broken  ac- 
cents, and  the  half  playful,  half  melancholy  smile  of  the 
writer ! 

But  if  Jem  White  was  the  companion  of  his  lighter 
moods,  the  friend  of  his  serious  thoughts  was  a  person 
of  far  nobler  powers,  —  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge.  It 
was  his  good  fortune  to  be  the  schoolfellow  of  that  ex- 
traordinary  man  ;  and  if  no  particular  intimacy  had 
been  formed  between  them  at  Christ's  Hospital,  a  foun- 
dation was  there  laid  for  a  friendship  to  which  the 
world  is  probably  indebted  for  all  that  Lamb  has  added 
to  its  sources  of  pleasure.  Junior  to  Coleridge  by  two 
years,  and  far  inferior  to  him  in  all  scholastic  acquire- 
ments. Lamb  had  listened  to  the  rich  discourse  of  "  the 


PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND  YOUTH.      21 

inspired  charity-boy"  with  a  wondering  dehght,  pure 
from  all  envy,  and,  it  may  be,  enhanced  by  his  sense 
of  his  own  feebleness  and  difficulty  of  expression. 
While  Coleridge  remained  at  the  University,  they  met 
occasionally  on  his  visits  to  London  ;  and  when  he 
quitted  it,  and  came  to  town,  full  of  mantling  hopes 
and  glorious  schemes,  Lamb  became  his  admiring  dis- 
ciple. The  scene  of  these  happy  meetings  was  a  little 
public-house,  called  the  Salutation  and  Cat,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Smithfield,  where  they  used  to  sup, 
and  remain  long  after  they  had  "  heard  the  chimes  at 
midnight."  There  they  discoursed  of  Bowles,  who  was 
the  god  of  Coleridge's  poetical  idolatry,  and  of  Burns 
and  Cowper,  who,  of  recent  poets,  in  that  season  of 
comparative  barrenness,  had  made  the  deepest  impres- 
sion on  Lamb.  There  Coleridge  talked  of  "  Fate,  free- 
will, foreknoAvledge  absolute,"  to  one  who  desired  "  to 
find  no  end"  of  the  golden  maze;  and  there  he  recited 
his  early  poems  with  that  deep  sweetness  of  intonation 
which  sunk  into  the  heart  of  his  hearer.  To  these 
meetings  Lamb  was  accustomed  at  all  periods  of  his  life 
to  revert,  as  the  season  when  his  finer  intellects  were 
quickened  into  action.  Shortly  after  they  had  termi- 
nated, with  Coleridge's  departure  from  London,  he  thus 
recalled  them  in  a  letter :  *  "  When  I  read  in  vour 
little  volume  your  nineteenth  effusion,  or  what  you  call 
'  the  Sigh,'  I  think  I  hear  you  again.  I  imagine  to 
myself  the  little  smoky  room  at  the  Salutation  and  Cat, 
where  we  have  sat  together  through  the  winter  nights 

*  This,  and  other  passages  I  have  interwoven  with  my  own  slender 
thread  of  narration,  are  from  letters  which  I  have  thought  either  too  per- 
sonal for  entire  publication  at  present,  or  not  of  sufficient  interest,  in  com- 
parison with  others,  to  occupy  a  portion  of  the  space,  to  which  the  letters 
are  limited. 


22  PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND   YOUTH. 

beguiling  the  cares  of  life  with  Poesy."  This  was 
early  in  1796  !  and  in  1818,  wlien  dedicating  *his 
works,  then  first  collected,  to  his  earliest  friend,  he 
thus  spoke  of  the  same  meetings  :  "  Some  of  the  son- 
nets, which  shall  be  carelessly  turned  over  by  the  gen- 
eral reader,  may  happily  awaken  in  you  remembrances 
which  I  should  be  sorry  should  be  ever  totally  ex- 
tinct, —  the  memory  '  of  summer  days  and  of  delightful 
years,'  even  so  far  back  as  those  old  suppers  at  our 
old  Inn, —  when  life  was  fresh,  and  topics  exhaustless, 
—  and  you  first  kindled  in  me,  if  not  the  power,  yet 
the  love  of  poetry,  and  beauty,  and  kindliness."  And 
so  he  talked  of  these  unforsotten  hours  in  that  short 
interval  durino;  which  death  divided  them  ! 

The  warmth  of  Coleridge's  friendship  supplied  the 
quickening  impulse  to  Lamb's  genius ;  but  the  germ 
infolding  all  its  nice  peculiarities  lay  ready  for  the  in- 
fluence, and  expanded  into  forms  and  hues  of  its  own. 
Lamb's  earliest  .poetry  was  not  a  faint  reflection  of 
Coleridge's,  such  as  the  young  lustre  -of  original  genius 
may  cast  on  a  polished  and  sensitive  mind,  to  glow  and 
tremble  for  a  season,  but  was  streaked  with  delicate 
yet  distinct  traits,  which  proved  it  an  emanation  from 
within.  There  was,  indeed,  little  resemblance  between 
the  two,  except  in  the  affection  which  they  bore  towards 
each  other.  Coleridge's  mind,  not  laden  as  yet  with  the 
spoils  of  all  systems  and  of  all  times,  glowed  with  the 
ardor  of  uncontrollable  purpose,  and  thirsted  for  glo- 
rious achievement  and  universal  knowledge.  The  im- 
agination, which  afterwards  struggled  gloriously,  but 
perhaps  vainly  to  overmaster  the  stupendous  clouds 
of  German  philosophies,  breaking  them  into  huge 
masses,   and   tinting  them  with   heavenly  hues,   then 


PARENTAGE,   SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND    YOUTH.  23 

slione  tlu'ougli  tl>e  simple  articles  of  Unitarian  faith, 
the  graceful  architecture  of  Hartley's  theory,  and  the 
■well-compacted  cliain  by  which  Priestley  and  Edwards 
seemed  to  bind  all  things  in  necessary  connection,  as 
through  transparencies  of  thought ;  and,  finding  no  op- 
position worthy  of  its  activity  in  this  poor  foreground 
of  the  mind,  opened  for  itself  a  bright  succession  of 
fairy  visions,  which  it  sought  to  realize  on  earth.  In 
its  light,  oppression  and  force  seemed  to  vanish  like  the 
phantoms  of  a  feverish  dream  ;  mankind  were  disposed 
in  the  picturesque  groups  of  universal  brotherhood ; 
and,  in  far  distance,  the  ladder  which  Jacob  saw  in 
solemn  vision  connected  earth  with  heaven,  "  and  the 
angels  of  God  were  ascending  and  descending  upon  it." 
Lamb  had  no  s^-mpathy  with  these  radiant  hopes,  ex- 
cept as  they  were'^art  of  his  friend.  He  clung  to  the 
realities  of  life  ;  to  things  nearest  to  him,  which  the 
force  of  habit  had  made  dear ;  and  caught  tremblingly 
hold  of  the  past.  He  delighted,  indeed,  to  hear  Cole- 
ridge talk  of  the  distant  and  future  ;  to  see  the  palm- 
trees  wave,  and  the  pyramids  tower  in  the  long 
perspective  of  his  style  ;  and  to  catch  the  prophetic 
notes  of  a  universal  harmony  trembling  in  his  voice ; 
but  the  pleasure  was  only  that  of  admiration  unalloyed 
by  envy,  and  of  the  generous  pride  of  ft-iendship.  The 
tendency  of  his  mind  to  detect  the  beautiful  and  good 
in  surrounding  things,  to  nestle  rather  than  to  n-oam, 
was  cherished  by  all  the  circumstances  of  his  boyish 
days.  He  had  become  familiar  with  the  vestiges  of 
antiquity,  both  in  his  school  and  in  his  home  of  the 
Temple  ;  and  these  became  dear  to  him  in  his  serious 
and  affectionate  childhood.  But,  perhaps,  more  even 
than  those  external  associations,  the  situation  of  his 


•2-4  PARENTAGE,   SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND    YOUTH. 

parents,  as  it  was  elevated  and  graced  by  their  charac- 
ter, moulded  his  young  thoughts  to  the  holy  habit  of  a 
liberal  obedience,  and  unaspiring  self-respect,  which  led 
rather  to  the  embellishment  of  what  was  near  than  to 
the  creation  of  visionary  forms.  He  saw  at  home  the 
daily  beauty  of  a  cheerful  submission  to  a  state  border- 
ing on  the  servile;  he  looked  upward  to  his  father's 
master,  and  the  old  Benchers  who  walked  with  him  on 
the  stately  terrace,  with  a  modest  erectness  of  mind ; 
and  he  saw  in  his  own  humble  home  how  well  the  de- 
cencies of  life  could  be  maintained  on  slender  means, 
by  the  exercise  of  generous  principle.  Another  cir- 
cumstance, akin  to  these,  tended  also  to  impart  a  tinge 
of  venerableness  to  his  early  musings.  His  maternal 
grandmother  was  for  many  years  housekeeper  in  the 
old  and  wealthy  family  of  the  Plumers  of  Hertford- 
shire, by  whom  she  was  held  in  true  esteem  ;  and 
his  visits  to  their  ancient  mansion,  where  he  had  the 
free  range  of  every  apartment,  gallery  and  terraced- 
walk,  gave  him  "  a  peep  at  the  contrasting  accidents 
of  a  great  fortune,"  and  an  alliance  with  that  gentility 
of  soul,  which  to  appreciate,  is  to  share.  He  has  beau- 
tifully recorded  his  own  recollections  of  this  place  in  the 

essay  entitled  "  Blakesmoor,  in  H shire,"  in  which 

he  modestly  vindicates  his  claim  to  partake  in  the  asso- 
ciations of  ancestry  not  his  own,  and  shows  the  true 
value  of  high  lineage  by  detecting  the  spirit  of  noble- 
ness which  breathes  ai'ound  it,  for  the  enkindling  of 
generous  affections,  not  only  in  those  who  may  boast 
of  its  possession,  but  in  all  who  can  feel  its  influences. 

While  the  bias  of  the  minds  of  Coleridge  and  Lamb 
thus  essentially  differed,  it  is  singular  that  their  opin- 
ions on  religion,  and  on  those  philosophical  questions 


PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND   YOUTH.  25 

which  border  on  religious  behef,  and  receive  their  color 
from  it,  agreed,  although  probably  derived  from  various 
sources.  Both  were  Unitarians,  ardent  admirers  of  the 
writings  and  character  of  Dr.  Priestley,  and  both  be- 
lievers in  necessity,  according  to  Priestley's  exposition, 
and  in  the  inference  which  he  drew  from  that  doctrine 
respecting  moral  responsibility,  and  the  ultimate  des- 
tiny of  the  human  race.  The  adoption  of  this  creed 
arose  in  Lamb  from  the  accident  of  education  ;  he  was 
brought  up  to  receive  and  love  it ;  and  attended,  when 
circumstances  permitted,  at  the  chapel  at  Hackney,  of 
which  Mr.  Belsham,  afterwards  of  Essex  Street,  was 
then  the  minister.  It  is  remarkable  that  another  of 
Lamb's  most  intimate  friends,  in  whose  conversation, 
next  to  that  of  Coleridge,  he  most  delighted,  Mr.  Haz- 
litt,  with  whom  he  became  acquainted  at  a  subsequent 
time,  and  who  came  from  a  distant  part  of  the  country, 
was  educated  in  the  same  faith.  With  Coleridge,  whose 
early  impressions  were  derived  from  the  rites  and  ser- 
vices of  the  Church  of  England,  Unitarianism  was  the 
result  of  a  strong  conviction  ;  so  strong,  that  with  all 
the  ardor  of  a  convert,  he  sought  to  win  proselytes  to 
his  chosen  creed,  and  purposed  to  spend  his  days  in 
preaching  it.  Neither  of  these  young  men,  however, 
long  continued  to  profess  it.  Lamb,  in  his  maturer 
life,  rarely  alluded  to  matters  of  religious  doctrine ;  and 
when  he  did  so,  evinced  no  sympathy  with  the  profes- 
sors of  his  once-loved  creed.  Hazlitt  wrote  to  his  father, 
who  was  a  Unitarian  minister  at  Wem,  with  honoring 
affection  ;  and  of  his  dissenting  associates  with  respect, 
but  he  had  obviously  ceased  to  think  or  feel  with  them ; 
and  Colerido-e's  Remains  indicate,  what  Avas  well  known 
to  all  who  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  his  conversation,  that 


26      PARENTAGE,  SCHOOL-DAYS,  AND  YOUTH. 

he  not  only  reverted  to  a  belief  in  the  Trinitarian  mys- 
teries, but  that  he  was  accustomed  to  express  as  much 
distaste  for  Unitarianism,  and  for  the  spirit  of  its  more 
active  advocates,  as  the  benignity  of  his  nature  would 
allow  him  to  feel  for  any  human  opinion  honestly  cher- 
ished. Perhaps  this  solitary  approach  to  intolerance  in 
the  universalitv  of  Colerido-e's  mind  arose  from  the  dis- 
approval  with  which  he  might  justly  regard  his  own 
pride  of  understanding,  as  excited  in  defence  of  the 
doctrines  he  had  adopted.  To  him  there  was  much  of 
devotional  thought  to  be  violated,  many  reverential  as- 
sociations, intertwined  with  the  moral  being,  to  be  rent 
away  in  the  struggle  of  the  intellect  to  grasp  the  doc- 
trines which  were  alien  to  its  nurture.  But  to  Lamb 
these  formed  the  simple  creed  of  his  childhood ;  and 
slender  and  barren  as  they  seem,  to  those  who  are 
united  in  religious  sympathy  with  the  great  body  of 
their  fellow-countrymen,  they  sufficed  for  affections 
which  had  so  strong  a  tendency  to  find  out  resting- 
places  for  themselves  as  his.  Those  who  only  knew 
him  in  his  latter  days,  and  who  feel  that  if  ever  the 
spirit  of  Christianity  breathed  through  a  human  life, 
it  breathed  in  his,  will,  nevertheless,  trace  with  surprise 
the  extraordinary  vividness  of  impressions  dii'ectly  re- 
ligious, and  the  self-jealousy  with  which  he  watched 
the  cares  and  distractions  of  the  world,  which  might 
efface  them,  in  his  first  letters.  If,  in  a  life  of  ungenial 
toil,  diversified  with  frequent  sorrow,  the  train  of  these 
solemn  meditations  was  broken :  if  he  was  led,  in  the 
distractions  and  labors  of  his  course,  to  cleave  more 
closely  to  surrounding  objects  than  those  early  aspira- 
tions promised  ;  if,  in  his  cravings  after  immediate  sym- 
pathy, he  rather  sought  to  perpetuate  the  social  circle 


PARENTAGE,   SCHOOL-DAYS,   AND   YOUTH.  27 

which  he  charmed,  than  to  expatiate  in  scenes  of  un- 
tried being  ;  his  pious  feehngs  were  only  diverted,  not 
destroyed.  The  stream  glided  still,  the  under-current 
of  thought  sometimes  breaking  out  in  sallies  which 
strangers  did  not  understand,  but  always  feeding  and 
nourishing  the  most  exquisite  sweetness  of  disposition, 
and  the  most  unobtrasive  proofs  of  self-denying  love. 
While  Lamb  was  enjoying  habits  of  the  closest  inti- 
macy with  Coleridge  in  London,  he  was  introduced  by 
him  to  a  young  poet  whose  name  has  often  been  asso- 
ciated Avith  his,  —  Charles  Lloyd,  —  the  son  of  a  wealthy 
banker  at  Birmingham,  who  had  recently  cast  oif  the 
trammels  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  and,  smitten  with 
the  love  of  poetry,  had  become  a  student  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge.  There  he  had  been  attracted  to 
Coleridge  by  the  fascination  of  his  discourse  ;  and  hav- 
ing been  admitted  to  his  regard,  was  introduced  by 
him  to  Lamb.  Lloyd  was  endeared  both  to  Lamb  and 
Coleridge  by  a  very  amiable  disposition  and  a  pensive 
cast  of  thought ;  but  his  intellect  bore  little  resemblance 
to  that  of  either.  He  wrote,  indeed,  pleasing  verses, 
and  with  great  facility,  —  a  facility  fatal  to  excellence  ; 
but  his  mind  was  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  fine  power 
of  analysis  which  distinguishes  his  "  London  "  and  other 
of  his  later  compositions.  In  this  power  of  discriminat- 
ing and  distinguishing  —  carried  to  a  pitch  almost  of 
painfulness  —  Lloyd  has  scarcely  been  equalled  ;  and 
his  poems,  though  rugged  in  point  of  versification,  will 
be  found  by  those  who  will  read  them  with  the  calm 
attention  they  require,  replete  Avith  critical  and  moral 
suggestions  of  the  highest  value.  He  and  Coleridge 
Were  devoted  wholly  to  literary  pursuits  ;  while  Lamb's 
days  Avere  given  to  accounts,  and  only  at  snatches  of 


28  TARENTAGE,   SCHOOL-DAYS,   AND  YOUTH. 

time  was  he  able  to  cultivate  tlie  faculty  of  which  the 
society  of  Coleridge  had  made  him  imperfectly  con- 
scious. 

Lamb's  first  compositions  were  in  verse,  —  produced 
slowly,  at  long  intervals,  and  with  self-distrust  which 
the  encouragements   of  Coleridge  could   not   subdue. 
With  the  exception  of  a  sonnet  to  Mrs.  Siddons,  whose 
acting,  especially  in  the  character  of  Lady  Randolph, 
had  made  a  deep  impression  upon  him,  they  were  ex- 
clusively personal.     The  longest  and  most  elaborate  is 
that  beautiful  piece  of  blank  verse  entitled  "  The  Gran- 
dame,"  in  which  he  so  altectionately  celebrates  the  vir- 
tues of  the  "  antique  world  "  of  the  aged  housekeeper  of 
Mr.  Plumer.     A  youthful  passion,  which  lasted  only  a 
few  months,  and  which  he  afterwards  attempted  to  re- 
gard lightly  as  a  folly  past,  inspired  a  few  sonnets  of 
very   delicate    feeling   and    exquisite   music.     On    the 
death  of  his  parents,  he  felt  himself  called   upon  by 
duty  to  repay  to  his  sister  the  solicitude  with  which  she 
had  watched  over  his  infancy  ;  —  and  well  indeed  he 
performed  it !     To  her,  from  the  age  of  twenty-one, 
he    devoted    his    existence ;  —  seeking   thenceforth   no 
connection  which  could  interfere  with  her  supremacy 
in  his  affections,  or  impair  his  ability  to  sustain  and 
to  comfort  her. 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  29 


CHAPTER  11. 

[1796.] 

LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE. 

In  the  year  1796,  Coleridge,  having  married  and 
relinquished  his  splendid  dream  of  emigration,  was  res- 
ident at  Bristol ;  and  Lamb,  who  had  quitted  the  Tem- 
ple, and  lived  with  his  father,  then  sinking  into  dotage, 
felt  his  absence  from  London  bitterly,  and  sought  a 
correspondence  with  him  as,  almost,  his  only  comfort. 
"  In  your  absence,"  he  writes,  in  one  of  the  earliest  of 
his  letters,*  "  I  feel  a  stupor  that  makes  me  indifferent 
to  the  hopes  and  fears  of  this  life.  I  sometimes  wish 
to  introduce  a  religious  turn  of  mind  ;  but  habits  are 
strong  things,  and  my  religious  fervors  are  confined, 
alas !  to  some  fleetino;  moments  of  occasional  soli- 
tary  devotion.  A  correspondence  opening  with  you 
has  roused  me  a  little  from  my  lethargy,  and  made 
me  conscious  of  existence.  Indulo-e  me  in  it !  I  will 
not  be  very  troublesome."  And  again,  a  few  days 
after  :  "  You  are  the  only  correspondent,  and,  I  might 
add,  the  only  friend,  I  have  in  the  world.  I  go  no- 
where, and  have  no  acquaintance.  Slow  of  speech, 
and  reserved  of  manners,  no  one  seeks  or  cares  for  my 
society,  and  I  am  left  alone.  Coleridge,  I  devoutly 
wish  that  Fortune,  which  has  made  sport  with  you  so 
long,  may  play  one  freak  more,  throw  you  into  Lon- 
don, or  some  spot  near  it,  and  there  snugify  you  for 
life.     'Tis  a  selfish,  but  natural  wish  for  me,  cast  as  I 

*  These  and  other  passages  are  extracted  from  letters  which  are  either 
too  personal  or  not  sufSciently  interesting  for  entire  publication. 


30  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

am  'on  life's  wide  plain  friendless.'"  These  appeals, 
it  may  well  be  believed,  were  not  made  in  vain  to  one 
who  delighted  in  the  lavish  communication  of  the  riches 
of  his  own  mind  even  to  strangers  ;  but  none  of  the 
letters  of  Coleridge  to  Lamb  have  been  preserved. 
He  had  just  published  his  "  Religious  Musings,"  and 
the  glittering  enthusiasm  of  its  language  excited  Lamb's 
pious  feelings,  almost  to  a  degree  of  pain.  "  I  dare 
not,"  says  he  of  this  poem,  "  criticize  it.  I  like  not  to 
select  any  part  where  all  is  excellent.  I  can  only  ad- 
mire and  thank  you  for  it,  in  the  name  of  a  lover  of 
true  poetry  — 

'  Believe  thou,  0  my  soul, 
Life  is  a  vision  shadowy  of  truth; 
And  vice,  and  anguish,  and  the  wormy  grave. 
Shapes  of  a  dream.' 

I  thank  you  for  these  lines  in  the  name  of  a  necessa- 
rian." To  Priestley,  Lamb  repeatedly  alludes  as  to  the 
object  of  their  common  admiration.  "  In  reading  your 
'  Religious  Musings,'  "  says  he,  "  I  felt  a  transient  su- 
periority over  you  :  I  have  seen  Priestley.  I  love  to 
see  his  name  repeated  in  your  writings  ;  —  I  love  andA 
honor  him  almost  profanely."  *  The  same  fervor  glows 
in  the  sectarian  piety  of  the  following  letter  addressed 
to  Coleridge,  when  fascinated  with  the  idea  of  a  cottage 
life. 

*  He  probably  refers  to  the  following  lines  in  the  "  Religious  Musings :"  — 

So  Priestley,  their  patriot,  and  saint,  and  sage, 
Him,  full  of  years,  from  his  loved  native  land. 
Statesmen  blood-stained,  and  priests  idolatrous. 
Drove  with  vain  hate.     Calm,  pitying,  he  retum'd, 
And  mused  expectant  on  those  promised  years ! 


I 


LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE.  St 


TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Oct.  24tli,  1796. 

"  Coleridge,  I  feel  myself  much  your  debtor  for  tliat 
spirit  of  confidence  and  friendship  Avhich  dictated  your 
last  letter.  May  your  soul  find  peace  at  last  in  your 
cottage  life  !  I  only  wish  you  were  hat  settled.  Do 
continue  to  write  to  me.  I  read  your  letters  with  my 
sister,  and  they  give  us  both  abundance  of  delight. 
Especially  they  please  us  two,  when  you  talk  in  a  re- 
ligious strain,  —  not  but  we  are  offended  occasionally 
with  a  certain  freedom  of  expression,  a  certain  air  of 
mysticism,  more  consonant  to  the  conceits  of  pagan 
philosophy,  than  consistent  with  the  humility  of  genu- 
ine piety.  To  instance  now  in  your  last  letter,  —  you 
say,  'it  is  by  the  press,  that  God  hath  given  finite 
spirits  both  evil  and  good  (I  suppose  you  mean  simply 
bad  men  and  good  men),  a  portion  as  it  were  of  His 
Omnipresence  ! '  Now,  high  as  the  human  intellect 
comparatively  will  soar,  and  wide  as  its  influence,  ma- 
hgn  or  salutary,  can  extend,  is  there  not,  Coleridge,  a 
distance  between  the  Divine  Mind  and  it,  which  makes 
such  language  blasphemy  ?  Again,  in  your  first  fine 
consolatory  epistle  you  say,  '  you  are  a  temporary 
sharer  in  human  misery,  that  you  may  be  an  eternal 
partaker  of  the  Divine  Nature.'  What  more  than  this 
do  those  men  say,  who  are  for  exalting  the  man  Christ 
Jesus  into  the  second  person  of  an  unknown  Trinity,  — 
whom  you  or  I  scruple  not  to  call  idolaters  ? 
4  ~,  full  of  imperfections,  at  best,  and  subject  to 
iits  Avhich  momentarily  remind  him  of  dependence  ; 
an,  a  weak  and  ignorant  being,  '  servile  '  from  his 
oirth  '  to  all  the  skyey  influences,'  with  eyes  sometimes 


■»  «■ 


32  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

open  to  discern  the  rio;lit  path,  but  a  head  generally 
too  dizzy  to  pursue  it ;  man,  in  the  pride  of  speculation, 
forgetting  his  nature,  and  hailing  in  himself  the  future 
God,  must  make  the  angels  laugh.  Be  not  angiy  with 
me,  Coleridge  ;  I  wish  not  to  cavil ;  I  Icnow  I  cannot  irv- 
struct  you  ;  I  only  wish  to  remind  you  of  that  humility 
which  best  becometh  the  Christian  character.  God,  in 
the  New  Testament  (our  best  ■guide'),  is  represented  to 
us  in  the  kind,  condescending,  amiable,  familiar  light 
of  2L  parent ;  and  in  my  poor  mind  'tis  best  for  us  so  to 
consider  of  him,  as  our  heaverdy  father,  and  our  best 
friend,  without  indulging  too  bold  conceptions  of  his 
nature.  Let  us  learn  to  think  humbly  of  ourselves, 
and  rejoice  in  the  appellation  of  '  dear  children,' 
'  brethren,'  and  '  coheirs  with  Christ  of  the  prom- 
ises,' seeking  to  know  no  further. 

"  I  am  not  insensible,  indeed  I  am  not,  of  the  value 
of  that  first  letter  of  yours,  and  I  shall  find  reason  to 
thank  you  for  it  again  and  again  long  after  that  blem- 
ish in  it  is  forgotten.  It  will  be  a  fine  lesson  of  com- 
fort  to  us,  whenever  we  read  it ;  and  read  it  we  often 
shall,  Mary  and  I. 

"  Accept  our  loves  and  best  kind  wishes  for  the  wel- 
fare of  yourself  and  wife  and  little  one.  Nor  let  me 
forget  to  wish  you  joy  on  your  birthday,  so  lately  past ; 
I  thought  you  had  been  older.  My  kind  thanks  and 
remembrances  to  Lloyd. 

"  God  love  us  all,  and  may  He  continue  to  be  the 
father  and  the  friend  of  the  whole  human  race  ! 

"C.  Lamb." 

"  Sunday  Evening." 

The   next  letter,  commencing  in   a  similar  strain, 


LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE.  33 

diverges  to  literary  topics,  and  especially  alludes  to 
"Walton's  Angler,"  —  a  book  which  Lamb  always 
loved  as  it  were  a  living  friend. 


TO   MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Oct.  28th,  1796. 

"  My  dear  friend,  I  am  not  ignorant  that  to  be  a 
partaker  of  the  Divine  Nature  is  a  phrase  to  be  met 
with  in  Scripture  :  I  am  only  apprehensive,  lest  we  in 
these  latter  days,  tinctured  (some  of  us  perhaps  pretty 
deeply)  with  mystical  notions  and  the  pride  of  meta- 
physics, might  be  apt  to  affix  to  such  phrases  a  mean- 
ing, which  the  primitive  users  of  them,  the  simple 
fisher  of  Galilee  for  instance,  never  intended  to  convey. 
With  that  other  part  of  your  apology  I  am  not  quite  so 
well  satisfied.  You  seem  to  me  to  have  been  straining 
your  comparing  faculties  to  bring  together  things  in- 
finitely distant  and  unlike  ;  the  feeble  narrow-sphered 
operations  of  the  human  intellect ;  and  the  everywhere 
difiused  mind  of  Deity,  the  peerless  wisdom  of  Jehovah. 
Even  the  expression  appears  to  me  inaccurate,  —  por- 
tion of  omnipresence,  —  omnipresence  is  an  attribute 
whose  very  essence  is  unlimitedness.  How  can  omni- 
presence be  affirmed  of  anything  in  part  ?  But  enough 
of  this  spirit  of  disputatiousness.  Let  us  attend  to  the 
proper  business  of  human  life,  and  talk  a  little  together 
respecting  our  domestic  concerns.  Do  you  continue  to 
make  me  acquainted  with  what  you  are  doing,  and 
how  soon  you  are  likely  to  be  settled  once  for  all. 

"  Have  you  seen  Bowles's  new  poem  on  '  Hope  ? ' 
What  character  does  it  bear  ?  Has  he  exhausted  his 
stores  of  tender  plaintiveness  ?    or  is  he   the  same  in 

VOL.   I.  3 


34  LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE. 

this  last  as  in  all  his  former  pieces  ?  The  duties  of  the 
day  call  me  off  from  this  pleasant  intercourse  with  my 
friend,  —  so  for  the  present  adieu.  Now  for  the  truant 
borrowing  of  a  few  minutes,  from  business.  Have  you 
met  with  a  new  poem  called  the  '  Pursuits  of  Litera- 
ture ? '  from  the  extracts  in  the  '  British  Review  '  I 
judge  it  to  be  a  very  humorous  thing,  in  particular  I 
remember  what  I  thought  a  very  happy  character  of 
Dr.  Darwin's  poetry.  Among  all  your  quaint  read- 
ings did  you  ever  light  upon  '  Walton's  Complete 
Angler  ? '  I  asked  you  the  question  once  before ;  it 
breathes  the  very  spirit  of  innocence,  purity,  and  sim- 
plicity of  heart ;  there  are  many  choice  old  verses  in- 
terspersed in  it ;  it  would  sweeten  a  man's  temper  at 
any  time  to  read  it ;  it  would  Christianize  every  dis- 
cordant angry  passion  ;  pray  make  yourself  acquainted 
with  it.  Have  you  made  it  up  with  Southey  yet  ? 
Surely  one  of  you  two  must  have  been  a  very  silly  fel- 
low, and  the  other  not  much  better,  to  fall  out  like 
boarding-school  misses ;  kiss,  shake  hands,  and  make 
it  up. 

"  When  will  he  be  delivered  of  his  new  epic  ?  Madoc, 
I  think,  is  to  be  the  name  of  it,  though  that  is  a  name 
not  familiar  to  my  ears.  What  progress  do  you  make 
in  your  hymns  ?  What  '  Review  '  are  you  connected 
with  ?  if  with  any,  why  do  you  delay  to  notice  White's 
book  ?  You  are  justly  offended  at  its  profaneness,  but 
surely  you  have  undervalued  its  wit^  or  you  would  have 
been  more  loud  in  its  praises.  Do  not  you  think  that 
in  Slender's  death  and  madness  there  is  most  exquisite 
humor,  mingled  with  tenderness,  that  is  irresistible, 
truly  Shakspearian  ?  Be  more  full  in  your  mention  of 
it.     Poor  fellow,  he  has  (very  undeservedly)  lost  by  it, 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  35 

nor  do  I  see  that  it  is  likely  ever  to  reimburse  him  the 
charge  of  printing,  &c.  Give  it  a  lift,  if  you  can.  I 
am  just  now  wondering  whether  you  will  ever  come  to 
town  again,  Coleridge  ;  'tis  among  the  things  I  dare 
not  hope,  but  can't  help  wishing.  For  myself,  I  can 
live  in  the  midst  of  town  luxury  and  superfluity,  and 
not  long  for  them,  and  I  can't  see  why  your  children 
might  not  hereafter  do  the  same.  Remember,  you  are 
not  in  Arcadia,  when  you  are  in  the  west  of  England, 
and  they  may  catch  infection  from  the  world  without 
visiting  the  metropolis.  But  you  seem  to  have  set 
your  heart  upon  this  same  cottage  plan,  and  God  pros- 
per you  in  the  experiment !  I  am  at  a  loss  for  more  to 
write  about,  so  'tis  as  well  that  I  am  arrived  at  the  bot>- 
tom  of  my  paper. 

"  God  love  you,  Coleridge !  —  our  best  loves  and 
tenderest  wishes  await  on  you,  your  Sara,  and  your 
little  one. 

«  C.  L." 

Having  been  encouraged  by^Coleridge  to  entertain 
the  thought  of  publishing  his  verses,  he  submitted  the 
poem  called  "  The  Gi-andame,"  to  his  friend,  with  the 
following  letter :  — 


TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Monday  night. 
"  Unfurnished  at  present  with  any  sheet-filhng  sub- 
ject, I  shall  continue  my  letter  gradually  and  joumal- 
%vise.  My  second  thoughts  entirely  coincide  with  your 
comments  on  '  Joan  of  Arc,'  and  I  can  only  wonder  at 
my  cliildish  judgment  which  overlooked  the  1st  book 


36  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

and  could  prefer  the  9th  :  not  that  I  was  insensible  to 
the  soberer  beauties  of  the  former,  but  the  latter  caught 
me  with  its  glare  of  magic,  —  the  former,  however,  left 
a  more  pleasing  general  recollection  in  my  mind.     Let 
me  add,  the  1st  book  was  the  favorite  of  my  sister  — 
and  /  now,  with  Joan,  often  '  think  on  Domremi  and 
the  fields  of  Arc'     I  must  not  pass  over  without  ac- 
knowledging my  obligations  to  your  full  and  satisfac- 
tory account  of  personifications.     I  have  read  it  again 
and  again,  and  it  will  be  a  guide  to  my  future  taste. 
Perhaps  I  had  estimated  Southey's  merits   too  much 
by  number,  weight,  and  measure.     I  now  agree  com- 
pletely and  entirely  in  your  opinion  of  the  genius  of 
Southey.     Your   own   image   of  melancholy   is   illus- 
trative of  what  you  teach,  and  in  itself  masterly.     I 
conjecture  it  is  '  disbranched '  from  one  of  your  embryo 
'  hymns.'     When   they  are   mature  of  birth  (were   I 
you)  I  should  print  'em  in  one  separate  volume,  with 
'Religious   Musings,'  and  your  part  of  the  'Joan  of 
Arc'     Birds  of  the  same  soaring  wing  should  hold  on 
their  flight  in  compan;^     Once  for  all  (and  by  renew- 
ing the  subject  you  will  only  renew  in  me  the  con- 
demnation of  Tantalus),  I  hope  to  be  able  to  pay  you 
a  visit  (if  you  are  then  at  Bristol)  some  time  in  the 
latter  end  of  August  or  beginning  of  September,  for 
a  week  or  fortnight,  —  before  that  time,  office  business 
puts  an  absolute  veto  on  my  coming. 

'  And  if  a  sigh  that  speaks  regi-et  of  happier  times  appear, 
A  glimpse  of  joy  that  we  have  met  shall  shine  and  dry  the  tear.' 

Of  the  blank  verses  I  spoke  of,  the  following  lines 
are  the  only  tolerably  complete  ones  I  have  writ  out  of 
not  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty.     That  I  get  on 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  37 

SO  slowly  you  may  fairly  impute  to  want  of  practice 
in  composition,  when  I  declare  to  you  that  (the  few 
verses  which  you  have  seen  excepted)  I  have  not  writ 
fifty  lines  since  I  left  school.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to 
remark  that  my  grandmother  (on  whom  the  verses  are 
written)  lived  housekeeper  in  a  family  the  fifty  or 
sixty  last  years  of  her  hfe,  —  that  she  was  a  woman  of 
exemplary  piety  and  goodness,  —  and  for  many  years 
before  her  death  was  terribly  afflicted  with  a  cancer  in 
her  breast  which  she  bore  with  true  Christian  patience. 
You  may  think  that  I  have  not  kept  enough  apart  the 
ideas  of  her  heavenly  and  her  earthly  master,  but  rec- 
ollect I  have  designedly  given  in  to  her  own  wav  of 
feeling,  —  and  if  she  had  a  failing,  'twas  that  she  re- 
spected her  master's  family  too  much,  not  reverenced 
her  Maker  too  httle.  The  hnes  begin  imperfectly,  as  I 
may  probably  connect  'em  if  I  finish  at  all,  -^  and  if  I 
do,  Biggs  shall  print  'em,  in  a  more  economical  way 
than  you  yours,  for  (sonnets  and  all)  they  won't  make 
a  thousand  Hues  as  I  propose  completing  'em,  and 
the  substance  must  be  wiredrawn." 

The  following  letter,  written  at  intervals,  will  give 
an  insight  into  Lamb's  spirit  at  this  time,  in  its  lighter 
and  gayer  moods.  It  would  seem  that  his  acquaints 
ance  with  the  old  English  dramatists  had  just  com- 
menced with  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and  Massin- 
ger  :  — 

TO   MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Tuesday   evening. 

"  To  your  list  of  illustrative  personifications,  into 
which  a  fine  imagination  enters,  I  will  take  leave  to 


38  LETTERS   TO  COLERIDGE. 

add  the  followino-  from  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  'Wife 
for  a  Month ; '  'tis  the  conclusion  of  a  descriptioft  of  a 
sea-fight :  — '  The  game  of  death  was  never  played  so 
nobly  ;  the  meagre  thief  grew  wanton  in  his  mischiefs, 
and  his  shrunk  hollow  eyes  smiled  on  his  ruins.'  There 
is  fancy  in  these  of  a  lower  order,  from  'Bonduca  : '  — 
'  Then  did  I  see  these  valiant  men  of  Britain,  hke 
boding  owls  creep  into  tods  of  ivy,  and  hoot  their  fears 
to  one  another  nightly.'  Not  that  it  is  a  personifica- 
tion ;  only  it  just  caught  my  eye  in  a  little  extract  book 
I  keep,  which  is  full  of  quotations  from  B.  and  F.  in 
particular,  in  which  authors  I  can't  help  thinking  there 
is  a  greater  richness  of  poetical  fancy  than  in  any  one, 
Shakspeare  excepted.  Are  you  acquainted  with  Mas- 
singer  ?  At  a  hazard  I  will  trouble  you  with  a  passage 
from  a  play  of  his  called  'A  Very  Woman.'  The  lines 
are  spoken  by  a  lover  (disguised)  to  his  faithless  mis- 
tress. You  will  remark  the  fine  effect  of  the  double 
endings.  You  will  by  your  ear  distinguish  the  hnes, 
for  I  write  'em  as  prose.  'Not  far  from  where  my 
father  lives,  a  lady^  a  neighbor  by,  blest  with  as  great 
a  heauty  as  nature  durst  bestow  without  undoing,  dwelt, 
and  most  happily,  as  I  thought  then,  and  blest  the 
house  a  thousand  times  she  dwelt  in.  This  beauty,  in 
the  blossom  of  my  youth,  when  my  first  fire  knew  no 
adulterate  incense,  nor  I  no  way  to  flatter  but  my  fond- 
7iess ;  in  all  the  bravery  my  friends  could  show  me,  in 
all  the  faith  my  innocence  could  give  me,  in  the  best 
language  my  true  tongue  could  tell  me,  and  all  the 
broken  sighs  my  sick  heart  lend  me,  I  sued  and  served  ; 
long  did  I  serve  this  lady,  long  was  my  travail,  long  my 
trade  to  win  her  ;  with  all  the  duty  of  my  soul  I  served 
HER.'     'Then  she  must  love.'     'She  did,  but  never 

k 


LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE.  39 

me :  she  could  not  love  me ;  she  would  not  love,  she 
hat^l,  —  more,  she  scorn' d  me;  and  in  so  -^ooy  and 
base  a  way  abused  me  for  all  my  services,  for  all  my 
bounties,  so  bold  neglects  flung  on  me.'  —  'What  out  of 
love,  and  worthy  love  I  gave  her,  (shame  to  her  most 
unworthy  mind,)  to  fools,  to  girls,  to  fiddlers  and  her 
boys  she  flung,  all  in  disdain  of  me.'     One  more  pas- 
sage strikes  my  eye  from  B.  and  F.'s  'Palamon  and 
Arcite.'     One  of 'em  complains  in  prison:  'This  is  all 
our  world  ;  we  shall  know  nothing  here  but  one  another ; 
hear  nothing  but  the  clock  that  tells  us  our  woes ;  the 
vine  shall  grow,  but  we  shall  never  see  it,'  &c.  —  Is  not 
the  last  circumstance  exquisite  ?     I  mean  not  to  lay  my- 
self open  by  saying  they  exceed  Milton,  and  perhaps 
Collins,  in  sublimity.     But  don't  you  conceive  all  poets 
after  Shakspeare  yield  to  'em  in  variety  of  genius  ? 
Massinger  treads  close  on  their  heels  ;  but  you  are  most 
probably  as  well  acquainted  with  his  writings  as  your 
humble  servant.     My  quotations,  in  that  case,  will  only 
serve  to  expose  my  barrenness  of  matter.     Southey  in 
simplicity  and  tenderness,  is  excelled  decidedly  only,  I 
think,  by  Beaumont  and  F.  in  his  '  Maid's  Tragedy,' 
and  some  parts  of '  Philaster '  in  particular  ;  and  else- 
where  occasionally  ;    and  perhaps  by  Cowper  in  his 
'  Crazy  Kate,'  and  in  parts  of  his  translation ;  such  as 
the  speeches  of  Hecuba  and  Andromache.     I  long  to 
know  your  opinion  of  that  translation.     The  Odyssey 
especially  is  surely  very  Homeric.     What  nobler  than 
the  appearance  of  Phoebus  at  the  beginning  of  the  Iliad, 
—  the  lines  ending  with  'Dread  sounding,  bounding  on 
the  silver  bow  I ' 

"  I  beg  you  will  give  me  your  opinion  of  the  trans- 
lation ;   it  afforded  me  high  pleasure.     As  cui'ious   a 


40  LETTERS  TO    COLERIDGE. 

specimen  of  translation  as  ever  fell  into  my  hands,  is  a 
young  man's  in  our  office,  of  a  French  novel.  What 
in  the  original  was  literally  '  amiable  delusions  of  the 
fancy,'  he  proposed  to  render  '  the  fair  frauds  of  the 
imagination.'  I  had  much  trouble  in  licking  the  book 
into  any  meaning  at  all.  Yet  did  the  knave  clear  fifty 
or  sixty  pounds  by  subscription  and  selling  the  copy- 
right. The  book  itself  not  a  week's  work  !  To-day's 
portion  of  my  journalizing  epistle  has  been  very  dull 
and  poverty-stricken.     I  will  here  end." 


"  Tuesday  night. 

"  I  have  been  drinking  egg-hot  and  smoking  Oro- 
nooko,  (associated  circumstances,  which  ever  forcibly 
recall  to  my  mind  our  evenings  and  nights  at  the  Salu- 
tation,) my  eyes  and  brain  are  heavy  and  asleep,  but 
my  heart  is  awake  ;  and  if  words  came  as  ready  as 
ideas,  and  ideas  as  feelings,  I  could  say  ten  hundred 
kind  things.  Coleridge,  you  know  not  my  supreme 
happiness  at  having  one  on  earth  (though  counties  sep- 
arate us)  whom  I  can  call  a  friend.  Remember  you 
those  tender  lines  of  Logan  ?  — 


Onr  broken  friendships  we  deplore, 
And  loves  of  youth  that  are  no  more; 
No  after  friendships  e'er  can  raise 
Th'  endearments  of  our  early  days, 
And  ne'er  the  heart  such  fondness  prove, 
As  when  we  first  began  to  love.' 


"  I   am   writing   at    random,  and   half-tipsy,    what 
you  may  not  equally  understand,  as  you  will  be  sober 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  41 

when  you  read  it ;   but  my  sober  and  my  half-tipsy 
hour^  you  are  ahke  a  sharer  in.     Good-night. 

'  Then  up  rose  our  bard,  like  a  prophet  in  drink, 
Craigdoroch,  thou'lt  soar  when  creation  shall  sink.' 

Burns." 


"  Thursday. 

"  I  am  now  in  high  hopes  to  be  able  to  visit  you,  if 
perfectly  convenient  on  your  part,  by  the  end  of  next 
month,  —  perhaps  the  last  week  or  fortnight  in  July. 
A  change  of  scene  and  a  change  of  faces  would  do  me 
good,  even  if  that  scene  were  not  to  be  Bristol,  and 
those  faces  Colerido-e's  and  his  friends' !  In  the  words 
of  Terence,  a  little  altered,  '  Ttedet  me  hujus  quotidi- 
ani  mundi.^  I  am  heartily  sick  of  the  e very-day  scenes 
of  life.  I  shall  half  wish  you  unmarried  (don't  show 
this  to  Mrs.  C.)  for  one  evening  only,  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  smoking  with  you,  and  drinking  egg-hot  in 
some  little  smoky  room  in  a  pothouse,  for  I  know  not 
yet  how  I  shall  like  you  in  a  decent  room,  and  looking 
quite  happy.  My  best  love  and  respects  to  Sara  not- 
withstanding. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  Charles  Lamb." 

A  proposal  by  Coleridge  to  print  Lamb's  poems  with 
a  new  edition  of  his  own  (an  association  in  which 
Lloyd  was  ultimately  included)  occasioned  reciprocal 
communications  of  each  other's  verses,  and  many  ques- 
tions of  small  alterations  suo-ffested  and  argued  on  both 
sides.  I  have  thouo;ht  it  better  to  omit  mucli  (jf  this 
verbal  criticism,  which,  not  very  interesting  in  itself, 


42  LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE. 

is  unintelligible  without  a  contemporary  reference  to 
the  poems  which  are  its  subject.  The  next  letter  was 
written  on  hearino;  of  Colerido;e  beino;  afflicted  with 
a  painful  disease. 


TO   MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  Nov.  8th,  1796. 

"  My  brother,  my  friend,  —  I  am  distrest  for  you, 
believe  me  I  am ;  not  so  much  for  your  painful,  trouble- 
some complaint,  which,  I  trust,  is  only  for  a  time,  as 
for  those  anxieties  whicli  brought  it  on,  and  perhaps 
even  now  may  be  nursing  its  malignity.  Tell  me, 
dearest  of  my  friends,  is  your  mind  at  peace,  or  has 
anything,  yet  unknown  to  me,  happened  to  give  you 
fresh  disquiet,  and  steal  from  you  all  the  pleasant 
dreams  of  future  rest  ?  Are  you  still  (I  fear  you  are) 
far  from  being  comfortably  settled  ?  Would  to  God  it 
were  in  my  power  to  contribute  towards  the  bringing 
of  you  into  the  haven  where  you  would  be  !  But  you 
are  too  well  skilled  in  the  philosophy  of  consolation  to 
need  my  humble  tribute  of  advice  ;  in  pain,. and  in  sick- 
ness, and  in  all  manner  of  disappointments,  I  trust  you 
have  that  within  you  which  shall  speak  peace  to  your 
mind.  Make  it,  I  entreat  you,  one  of  your  puny  com- 
forts, that  I  feel  for  you,  and  share  all  your  griefs  with 
you.  I  feel  as  if  I  were  troubling  you  about  little 
things ;  now  I  am  going  to  resume  the  subject  of  our 
last  two  letters,  but  it  may  divert  us  both  from  unpleas- 
anter  feelinccs  to  make  such  matters,  in  a  manner,  of 
importance.  Without  further  apology,  then,  it  was 
not  that  I  did  not  relish,  that  I  did  not  in  my^heart 
thank   you  for   those  little  pictures    of  youi'   feelings 


LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE.  43 

which  you  lately  sent  me,  if  I  neglected  to  mention 
them.  You  may  remember  you  had  said  much  the 
same  things  before  to  me  on  the  same  subject  in  a  for- 
mer letter,  and  I  considered  those  last  verses  as  only 
the  identical  thoughts  better  clothed ;  either  way  (in 
prose  or  verse)  such  poetry  must  be  welcome  to  me. 
I  love  them  as  I  love  the  Confessions  of  Rousseau,  and 
for  the  same  reason ;  the  same  frankness,  the  same 
openness  of  heart,  the  same  disclosure  of  all  the  most 
hidden  and  delicate  affections  of  the  mind :  they  make 
me  proud  to  be  thus  esteemed  worthy  of  the  place  of 
friend-confessor,  brother-confessor,  to  a  man  like  Cole- 
ridge. This  last  is,  I  acknowledge,  language  too  high 
for  friendship ;  but  it  is  also,  I  declare,  too  sincere  for 
flattery.  Now,  to  put  on  stilts,  and  talk  magnificently 
about  trifles.  I  condescend,  then,  to  your  counsel, 
Coleridge,  and  allow  my  first  sonnet  (sick  to  death  am 
I  to  make  mention  of  my  sonnets,  and  I  blush  to  be  so 
taken  up  with  them,  indeed  I  do)  ;  I  allow  it  to  run 
thus,  '  Fairy  Land,''  &c.  &c.,  as  I  last  wrote  it. 

"  The  fragments  I  now  send  you,  I  want  printed  to 
get  rid  of  'em ;  for,  while  they  stick  burr-like  to  my 
memory,  they  tempt  me  to  go  on  with  the  idle  trade  of 
versifying,  which  I  long,  most  sincerely  I  speak  it,  I 
long  to  leave  off,  for  it  is  unprofitable  to  my  soul ;  I  feel 
it  is ;  and  these  questions  about  words,  and  debates 
about  alterations,  take  me  off,  I  am  conscious,  from  the 
properer  business  of  my  life.  Take  my  sonnets,  once  for 
all,  and  do  not  propose  any  re-amendments,  or  mention 
them  again  in  any  shape  to  me,  I  charge  you.  I  blush 
that  my  mind  can  consider  them  as  things  of  any 
worth.  And,  pray,  admit  or  reject  these  fragments  as 
you  like  or  dislike  them,  without  ceremony.     Call  'em 


44  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

sketches,  fragments,  or  what  you  will,  and  do  not  en- 
title any  of  my  things  love  sonnets,  as  I  told  you  to 
call  'em ;  'twill  only  make  me  look  little  in  my  own 
eyes  ;  for  it  is  a  passion  of  which  I  retain  notJmig  ;  'twas 
a  weakness,  concerning  which  I  may  say,  in  the  words 
of  Petrarch  (whose  life  is  now  open  before  me),  'if  it 
drew  me  out  of  some  vices,  it  also  prevented  the  growth 
of  many  virtues,  filling  me  with  the  love  of  the  creature 
rather  than  the  Creator,  which  is  the  death  of  the  soul.' 
Thank  God,  the  folly  has  left  me  forever ;  not  even  a 
review  of  my  love  verses  renews  one  wayward  wish  in 
me ;  and  if  I  am  at  all  solicitous  to  trim  'em  out  in 
their  best  apparel,  it  is  because  they  are  to  make  their 
appearance  in  good  company.  Now  to  my  fragments. 
Lest  you  have  lost  my  Grandame,  she  shall  be  one. 
'Tis  among  the  few  verses  I  ever  wrote,  that  to  Mary 
is  another,  which  profit  me  in  the  recollection.  God 
love  her,  and  may  we  two  never  love  each  other 
less  ! 

"  These,  Coleridge,  are  the  few  sketches  I  have 
thought  worth  preserving  ;  how  will  they  relish  thus 
detached  ?  Will  you  reject  all  or  any  of  them  ?  They 
are  thine,  do  whatsoever  thou  listest  with  them.  My 
eyes  ache  with  writing  long  and  late,  and  I  wax  won- 
drous sleepy ;  God  bless  you  and  yours,  me  and  mine  ! 
Good-nio;ht.  "  C.  Lamb. 

"  I  will  keep  my  eyes  open  reluctantly  a  minute 
longer  to  tell  you,  that  I  love  you  for  those  simple,  ten- 
der, heart-flowing  lines  with  which  you  conclude  your 
last,  and  in  my  eyes  best,  sonnet  (so  you  call  'em), 

'  So,  for  the  mother's  sake,  the  child  was  dear, 
And  dearer  was  the  mother  for  the  child.' 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  45 

Cultivate  simplicity,  Coleridge  ;  or  rather,  I  should  say, 
banish  elaborateness  ;  for  simplicity  springs  spontaneous 
from  the  heart,  and  carries  into  daylight  with  it  its  own 
modest  buds,  and  genuine,  sweet,  and  clear  flowers  of 
expression.  I  allow  no  hotbeds  in  the  gardens  of  Par- 
nassus. I  am  unwilling  to  go  to  bed,  and  leave  my 
sheet  unfilled  (a  good  piece  of  night-work  for  an  idle 
body  like  me),  so  will  finish  with  begging  you  to  send 
me  the  earliest  account  of  your  complaint,  its  progress, 
or  (as  I  hope  to  God  you  will  be  able  to  send  me)  the 
tale  of  your  recovery,   or  at  least  amendment.     My 

tenderest  remembrances  to  your  Sara. 

"  Once  more  good-night." 

A  wish  to  dedicate  his  portion  of  the  volume  to  his 
sister  gave  occasion  to  the  following  touching  letter  : 

TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"Nov.  14th,  1796. 

"  Coleridge,  I  love  you  for  dedicating  your  poetry  to 
Bowles :  Genius  of  the  sacred  fountain  of  tears,  it  was 
he  who  led  you  gently  by  the  hand  through  all  this 
valley  of  weeping,  showed  you  the  dark  green  yew- 
trees,  and  the  willow  shades,  where,  by  the  fall  of 
waters,  you  might  indulge  an  uncomplaining  melan- 
choly, a  delicious  regret  for  the  past,  or  weave  fine 
visions  of  that  awful  future, 

'  When  all  the  vanities  of  life's  brief  day 
Oblivion's  hurrying  hand  hath  swept  away, 
And  all  its  sorrows,  at  the  awful  blast 
Of  the  archangel's  trump,  are  but  as  shadows  past.' 

"  I  have  another  sort  of  dedication  in  my  head  for 
my  few  things,  which  I  want  to  know  if  you  approve 


46  LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE. 

of,  and  can  insert.     I  mean  to  inscribe  them  to  my 

sister.      It  will  be  unexpected,  and  it  will  give  her 

pleasure ;  or  do  you  think  it  will  look  whimsical  at  all  ? 

as  I  have  not  spoke  to  her  about  it,  I  can  easily  reject 

the  idea.     But  there  is  a  monotony  in  the  affections, 

which  people  living  together,  or,  as  we  do  now,  very 

frequently  seeing  each  other,  are  apt  to  give  in  to ;  a 

sort  of  indifference  in   the  expression  of  kindness  for 

each  other,  which  demands  that  we  should  sometimes 

call  to  our  aid  the  trickery  of  surprise.    Do  you  publish 

with  Lloyd,  or  without  him  ?  in  either  case  my  little 

portion  may  come  last,  and  after  the  fashion  of  orders 

to  a  country  correspondent,  I  will  give  directions  how 

I   should  like  to  have  'em  done.     The  title-page  to 

stand  thus  :  — 

POEMS, 

BY 

CHARLES  LAMB,  OF  THE  INDIA  HOUSE. 

"  Under  this  title  the  following  motto,  which,  for 
want  of  room,  I  put  over  leaf,  and  desire  you  to  insert 
whether  you  like  it  or  no.  May  not  a  gentleman 
choose  what  arms,  mottoes,  or  armorial  bearings  the 
herald  will  give  him  leave,  without  consulting  his  re- 
publican friend,  who  might  advise  none  ?  May  not  a 
publican  put  up  the  sign  of  the  Saracen's  Head,  even 
though  his  undiscerning  neighbor  should  prefer,  as 
more  genteel,  the  Cat  and  Gridiron  ? 

[Motto.] 
'  This  beauty,  in  the  blossom  of  my  youth, 
When  my  first  fire  knew  no  adulterate  incense. 
Nor  I  no  way  to  flatter  but  my  fondness, 
In  the  best  language  my  true  tongue  could  tell  me. 
And  all  the  broken  sighs  my  sick  heart  lend  me, 
I  sued  and  served.     Long  did  I  love  this  lady.' 

Massinoer. 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  47 


THE   DEDICATION. 

THE    FEW    FOLLOWING   POEMS, 

CREATURES  OF   THE   FANCY   AND   THE   FEELING 

IN   life's   more   vacant  HOURS, 

PRODUCED,    FOR  THE   MOST   PART,   BY 

LOVE   IN   IDLENESS, 

ARE, 

WITH   ALL  A   brother's    FONDNESS, 

INSCRIBED   TO 

MARY  ANNE  LAMB, 

THE   author's   best   FRIEND   AND   SISTER. 


"  This  is  the  pomp  and  paraphernalia  of  parting,  ■vvith 
which  I  take  my  leave  of  a  passion  which  has  reigned 
so  royally  (so  long)  within  me  ;  thus,  with  its  trappings 
of  laureateship,  I  fling  it  off,  pleased  and  satisfied  with 
myself  that  the  weakness  troubles  me  no  longer.  I  am 
wedded,  Coleridge,  to  the  fortunes  of  my  sister  and  my 
poor  old  father.  Oh !  my  friend,  I  think  sometimes, 
could  I  recall  the  days  that  are  past,  which  among 
them  should  I  choose  ?  not  those  '  merrier  days,'  not 
the  '  pleasant  days  of  hope,'  not  '  those  wanderings 
with  a  fair-hair'd  maid,'  which  I  have  so  often  and  so 
feelingly  regretted,  but  the  days,  Coleridge,  of  a  mothr 
er^s  fondness  for  her  schoolboy.  What  would  I  give  to 
call  her  back  to  earth  for  one  day,  on  my  knees  to  ask 
her  pardon  for  all  those  little  asperities  of  temper  which, 
from  time  to  time,  have  given  her  gentle  spirit  pain ; 
and  the  day,  my  friend,  I  trust,  will  come ;  there  will 
be  '  time  enough '  for  kind  ofhces  of  love,  if  '  Heaven's 
eternal  year'  be  ours.  Hereafter,  her  meek  spirit  shall 
not  reproach  me.  Oh,  my  friend,  cultivate  the  filial 
feelings !  and  let  no  man  think  himself  released  from 
the  kind  '  charities '  of  relationship  :    these  shall  give 


48  LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE. 

him  peace  at  the  last ;  these  are  the  best  foundation  for 
every  species  of  benevolence.  I  rejoice  to  hear,  by- 
certain  channels,  that  you,  my  friend,  are  reconciled 
with  all  your  relations.  'Tis  the  most  kindly  and  nat- 
ural species  of  love,  and  we  have  all  the  associated  train 
of  early  feelings  to  secure  its  strength  and  perpetuity. 
Send  me  an  account  of  your  health  ;  indeed  I  am 
solicitous  about  you.     God  love  you  and  yours. 

"  C.  Lamb." 

The  following,  written  about  this  time,  alludes  to 
some  desponding  expi-ession  in  a  letter  which  is  lost, 
and  which  Coleridge  had  combated. 


TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

»  Dec.  lOth,  1796. 

"  I  had  put  my  letter  into  the  post  rather  hastily,  not 
expecting  to  have  to  acknowledge  another  from  you  so 
soon.  This  morning's  present  has  made  me  alive  again  : 
my  last  night's  epistle  was  childishly  querulous  ;  but 
you  have  put  a  little  life  into  me,  and  I  will  thank  you 
for  your  remembrance  of  me,  while  my  sense  of  it  is 
yet  warm ;  for  if  I  linger  a  day  or  two  I  may  use  the 
same  phrase  of  acknowledgment,  or  similar,  but  the 
feeling  that  dictates  it  now  will  be  gone.  I  shall  send 
you  a  caput  mortuum,  not  a  cor  vivens.  Thy  Watch- 
man's, thy  bellman's  verses,  I  do  retort  upon  thee,  thou 
libellous  varlet,  —  why  you  cried  the  hours  yourself, 
and  who  made  you  so  proud !  But  I  submit,  to  show 
my  humility  most  implicitly  to  your  dogmas.  I  reject 
entirely  the  copy  of  verses  you  reject.  With  regard  to 
my  leaving  off.  versifying  you  have  said  so  many  pretty 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  49 

things,  so  many  fine  compliments,  ingeniously  decked 
out  in  the  garb  of  sincerity,  and  undoubtedly  springing 
from  a  present  feeling  somewhat  like  sincerity,  that  you 
might  melt  the  most  un-muse-ical  soul,  —  did  you  not 
(now  for  a  Rowland  compliment  for  your  profusion  of 
Olivers),  did  you  not  in  your  very  epistle,  by  the  many 
pretty  fancies  and  profusion  of  heart  displayed  in  it, 
dissuade  and  discourage  me  from  attempting  anything 
after  you.  At  present  I  have  not  leisure  to  make 
verses,  nor  anything  approaching  to  a  fondness  for  the 
exercise.  In  the  ignorant  present  time,  who  can  answer 
for  the  future  man  ?  '  At  lovers'  perjuries  Jove  laughs ' 
—  and  poets  have  sometimes  a  disingenuous  way  of  for- 
swearing their  occupation.  This  though  is  not  my  case. 
Publish  your  Burns  when  and  how  you  like,  it  will  be 
new  to  me,  —  my  memory  of  it  is  very  confused,  and 
tainted  with  unpleasant  associations.  Bums  was  the 
god  of  my  idolatry,  as  Bowles  of  yours.  I  am  jealous 
of  your  fraternizing  with  Bowles,  when  I  think  you 
relish  him  more  than  Bums,  or  my  old  favorite,  Cow- 
per.  But  you  conciliate  matters  w^hen  you  talk  of  the 
'  divine  chitchat '  of  the  latter :  by  the  expression,  I 
see  you  thoroughly  relish  him.  I  love  Mrs.  Coleridge 
for  her  excuses  an  hundred-fold  more  dearly,  than  if  she 
heaped  'line  upon  line,'  out  Hannah-ing  Hannah  More; 
and  had  rather  hear  you  sing  '  Did  a  very  little  baby ' 
by  your  family  fireside,  than  listen  to  you,  when  you 
were  repeating  one  of  Bowles's  sweetest  sonnets,  in 
your  sweet  manner,  while  we  two  were  indulging  sym- 
pathy, a  solitary  luxury,  by  the  fireside  at  the  Saluta- 
tion. Yet  have  I  no  higher  ideas  of  heaven.  Your 
company  was  one  '  cordial  in  this  melancholy  vale'  — 
the  remembrance  of  it  is  a  blessing  partly,  and  partly  a 

VOL.  I.  4 


50  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

curse.  When  I  can  abstract  myself  from  things  pres- 
ent, I  can  enjoy  it  with  a  freshness  of  rehsh  ;  but  it 
more  constantly  operates  to  an  unfavorable  comparison 
with  the  uninteresting  converse  I  always  and  only  can 
partake  in.  Not  a  soul  loves  Bowles  here  ;  scarce  one 
has  heard  of  Burns  :  few  but  laugh  at  me  for  readino- 
my  Testament,  —  they  talk  a  language  I  understand 
not,  I  conceal  sentiments  that  would  be  a  puzzle  to 
them.  I  can  only  converse  with  you  by  letter,  and 
with  the  dead  in  their  books.  My  sister,  indeed,  is  all 
I  can  wish  in  a  companion  ;  but  our  spirits  are  alike 
poorly,  our  reading  and  knowledge  from  the  selfsame 
sources ;  our  communication  with  the  scenes  of  the 
world  alike  narrow ;  never  having  kept  separate  com- 
pany, or  any  'company'  togethet never  having  read 

separate  books,  and  few  books  together  —  what  knowl- 
edge have  we  to  convey  to  each  other  ?  In  our  little 
range  of  duties  and  connections,  how  few  sentiments 
can  take  place,  without  friends,  with  few  books,  with  a 
taste  for  religion,  rather  than  a  strong  religious  habit ! 
We  need  some  support,  some  leading-strings  to  cheer 
and  direct  us  ;  you  talk  very  wisely,  and  be  not  sparing 
oi  your  advice.  Continue  to  remember  us,  and  to  show 
us  you  do  remember  us  :  we  will  take  as  lively  an  in- 
terest in  what  concerns  you  and  yours.  All  I  can  add 
to  your  happiness,  will  be  sympathy :  you  can  add  to 
mine  more;  you  can  teach  me  wisdom.  I  am  indeed 
an  unreasonable  correspondent ;  but  I  was  unwilling  to 
let  my  last  night's  letter  go  off  without  this  qualifier : 
you  will  perceive  by  this  my  mind  is  easier,  and  you 
will  rejoice.  I  do  not  expect  or  wish  you  to  write, 
till  you  are  moved  ;  and,  of  course,  shall  not,  till  you 
announce  to  me  that  event,  think  of  writing  myself. 


LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE.  51 

Love  to  Mrs.  Coleridge  and  David  Hartley,  and  my 
kind  remembrance  to  Lloj^d  if  he  is  with  you. 

"C.  Lamb. 

"  I  will  get  '  Nature  and  Art,'  —  have  not  seen  it 
yet — nor  any  of  Jeremy  Taylor's  works." 


CHAPTER  in. 

[1797.] 
LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE. 


The  volume  which  was  to  combine  the  early  poetry 
of  the  three  friends  was  not  completed  in  the  year 
1796,  and  proceeded  slowly  through  the  press  in  the 
following  year ;  Lamb  occasionally  submitting  an  addi- 
tional sonnet,  or  correction  of  one  already  sent,  to  the 
judgment  of  Coleridge,  and  filling  long  letters  with 
minute  suggestions  on  Coleridge's  share  of  the  work, 
and  high,  but  honest  expressions  of  praise  of  particular 
images  and  thoughts.  The  eulogy  is  only  interesting 
as  indicative  of  the  reverential  feeling  with  which 
Lamb  regarded  the  genius  of  Coleridge  —  but  one  or 
two  specimens  of  the  gentle  rebuke  which  he  ventured 
on,  when  the  gorgeousness  of  Coleridge's  language 
seemed  to  oppress  his  sense,  are  worthy  of  preserva- 
tion. The  followino;  relates  to  a  line  in  the  noble 
"Ode  on  the  Departing  Year,"  in  which  Coleridge 
had  \vi'itten  of 

"  Th'  ethereal  multitude, 
Whose  purple  locks  with  snow-white  glories  shone." 


52  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

"  '  Purple  licks  and  snow-white  glories  ; '  —  these 
are  things  the  muse  talks  about  when,  to  borrow  H. 
Walpole's  witty  phrase,  she  is  not  finely-frenzied,  only 
a  little  light-headed,  that's  all — '  Purple  locks  ! '  They 
may  manage  things  differently  in  fairy-land ;  but  your 
'  golden  tresses  '  are  to  my  fancy." 

On  this  remonstrance  Coleridge  changed  the  "  pur- 
ple "  into  "  golden,"  defending  his  original  epithet ;  and 
Lamb  thus  gave  up  the  point :  — 

"  '  Golden  locks  and  snow-white  glories '  are  as  in- 
congruous as  your  former  ;  and  if  the  great  Italian 
painters,  of  whom  my  friend  knows  about  as  much  as 
the  man  in  the  moon  —  if  these  great  gentlemen  be  on 
your  side,  I  see  no  harm  in  your  retaining  the  purple. 
The  o;lories  that  /  have  observed  to  encircle  the  heads 
of  saints  and  madonnas  in  those  old  paintings,  have 
been  mostly  of  a  dirty  drab-colored  yellow  —  a  dull 
gambogium.  Keep  your  old  line  ;  it  will  excite  a  con- 
fused kind  of  pleasurable  idea  in  the  reader's  mind,  not 
clear  enough  to  be  called  a  conception,  nor  just  enough, 
I  think,  to  reduce  to  painting.  It  is  a  rich  line,  you 
say ;  and  riches  hide  a  many  faults."  And  the  word 
"  wreathed  "  was  ultimately  adopted,  instead  of  purple 
or  eolden  :  but  the  snow-white  glories  remain. 


to 


Not  satisfied  with  the  dedication  of  his  portion  of  the 
volume  to  his  sister,  and  the  sonnet  whicn  had  been 
sent  to  the  press.  Lamb  urged  on  Coleridge  the  inser- 
tion of  another,  which  seems  to  have  been  ultimately 
withheld  as  too  poor  in  poetical  merit  for  publication. 
The  rejected  sonnet,  and  /the  references  made  to  it  by 
the  writer,  have  an  intei-est  now  beyond  what  mere 


LETTERS  TO    COLERIDGE.  53 

fancy  can  give.     After  various  critical  remarks  on  an 
ode  of  Coleridge,  he  thus  introduced  the  subject :  — 

"  If  the  fraternal  sentiment  conveyed  in  the  follow- 
ing lines  will  atone  for  the  total  want  of  anything  like 
merit  or  genius  in  it,  I  desire  you  will  print  it  next  after 
my  other  sonnet  to  my  sister. 

'Friend  of  my  earliest  years  and  childish  days, 
My  joys,  my  sorrows,  thou  with  me  hast  shared, 
Companion  dear;  and  we  alike  have  fared, 
Poor  pilgrims  we,  through  life's  unequal  ways. 
It  were  unwisely  done,  should  we  refuse 
To  cheer  our  path,  as  featly  as  we  may,  — 
Our  lonely  patli  to  cheer,  as  travellers  use. 
With  merry  song,  quaint  tale,  or  roundelay. 
And  we  will  sometimes  talk  past  troubles  o'er. 
Of  mercies  shown,  and  all  our  sickness  heal'd. 
And  in  his  judgments  God  remembering  love: 
And  we  will  learn  to  praise  God  evermore. 
For  those  "  glad  tidings  of  great  joy,''  reveal'd 
By  that  sooth  messenger,  sent  from  above.'  —  1797. 

"  This  has  been  a  sad  long  letter  of  business,  with 
no  room  in  it  for  what  honest  Bunyan  terms  heart-work. 
I  have  just  room  left  to  congratulate  you  on  your  re- 
moval to  Stowey ;  to  wish  success  to  all  your  projects ; 
to  '  bid  fair  peace '  be  to  that  house  ;  to  send  my  love 
and  best  wishes,  breathed  warmly,  after  your  dear  Sara, 
and  her  little  David  Hartley.  If  Lloyd  be  with  you, 
bid  him  write  to  me  :  I  feel  to  whom  I  am  obliged  pri- 
marily, for  two  very  friendly  letters  I  have  received 
already  from  him.  A  dainty  sweet  book  that  '  Nature 
and  Art'  is.  —  I  am  at  present  re-re-reading  Priest>- 
ley's  "  Examination  of  the  Scotch  Doctors  :  "  how  the 
rogue  strings  'em  up  !  three  together  !  You  have  no 
doubt  read  that  clear,  strong,  humorous,  most  enter- 
taining piece  of  reasoning  ?     If  not,   procure  it,  and 


54  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

be  exquisitely  amused.  I  wish  I  could  get  more  of 
Priestley's  works.  Can  you  recommend  me  to  any 
more  books,  easy  of  access,  such  as  circulating  shops 
afford  !     God  bless  you  and  yours. 

"  Monday  morning,  at  office." 

"  Poor  Mary  is  very  unwell  with  a  sore  throat  and  a 
slight  species  of  scarlet  fever.     God  bless  her  too." 

He  recurs  to  the  subject  in  his  next  letter,  which  is 
also  interesting,  as  urging  Coleridge  to  attempt  some 
great  poem  worthy  of  his  genius. 


TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Jan.  10th,  1797. 

"  I  need  not  repeat  my  wishes  to  have  my  little  son- 
nets printed  verbatim  my  last  way.  In  particular,  I 
fear  lest  you  should  prefer  printing  my  first  sonnet,  as 
you  have  done  more  than  once,  '  Did  the  wand  of  Mer- 
lin wave  ? '  it  looks  so  like  Mi'.  Merlin,  the  ingenious 
successor  of  the  immortal  Merlin,  now  living  in  good 
health  and  spirits,  and  flourishing  in  magical  reputa- 
tion, in  Oxford  Street ;  and,  on  my  life,  one  half  who 
read  it  would  understand  it  so.  Do  put  'em  forth 
finally,  as  I  have,  in  various  letters,  settled  it ;  for  first 
a  man's  self  is  to  be  pleased,  and  then  his  friends,  — 
and,  of  course,  the  greater  number  of  his  friends,  if  they 
differ  inter  se.  Thus  taste  may  safely  be  put  to  the 
vote.  I  do  long  to  see  our  names  together  ;  not  for 
vanity's  sake,  and  naughty  pride  of  heart  altogether, 
for  not  a  living  soul  I  know,  or  am  intimate  with,  will 
scarce  read  the  book,  —  so  I  shall  gain  nothing,  quoad 


LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE.  55 

famam  ;  and  yet  there  is  a  little  vanity  mixes  in  it,  I 
cannot  help  denying.  —  I  am  aware  of  the  unpoetical 
case  of  the  last  six  lines  of  my  last  sonnet,  and  think 
myself  unwarranted  in  smuggling  so  tame  a  thing  into 
the  book  ;  only  the  sentiments  of  those  six  lines  are 
thoroughly  congenial  to  me  in  my  state  of  mind,  and 
I  wish  to  accumulate  perpetuating  tokens  of  my  affec- 
tion to  poor  Mary,  —  that  it  has  no  originality  in  its 
cast,  nor  anything  in  the  feelings,  but  what  is  common 
and  natural  to  thousands,  nor  ought  properly  to  be 
called  poetry,  I  see  ;  still  it  will  tend  to  keep  present 
to  my  mind  a  view  of  things  which  I  ought  to  indulge. 
These  six  lines,  too,  have  not,  to  a  reader,  a  connected- 
ness with  the  foregoing.  Omit  it,  if  you  like.  —  What 
a  treasure  it  is  to  my  poor,  indolent,  and  unemployed 
mind  thus  to  lay  hold  on  a  subject  to  talk  about,  though 
'tis  but  a  sonnet,  and  that  of  the  lowest  order  !  How 
mournfully  inactive  I  am  !  —  'Tis  night :  good-night. 

"  My  sister,  I  thank  God,  is  nigh  recovered :  she 
was  seriously  ill.  Do,  in  your  next  letter,  and  that 
right  soon,  give  me  some  satisfaction  respecting  your 
present  situation  at  Stowey.  Is  it  a  farm  you  have 
got  ?  and  what  does  your  worship  know  about  farming? 

"  Coleridge,  I  want  you  to  write  an  epic  poem. 
Nothing  short  of  it  can  satisfy  the  vast  capacity  of  true 
poetic  genius.  Plaving  one  great  end  to  direct  all  your 
poetical  faculties  to,  and  on  which  to  lay  out  your 
hopes,  your  ambition  will  show  you  to  what  you  are 
equal.  By  the  sacred  energies  of  Milton  !  by  the 
dainty,  sweet,  and  soothing  fantasies  of  honey- 
tongued  Spenser  !  I  adjure  you  to  attempt  the  epic. 
Or  do  something  more  ample  than  the  writing  an  oc- 
casional brief  ode  or  sonnet ;  something  '  to  make  your- 


56  LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE. 

self  forever  known,  —  to  make  the  age  to  come  your 
own.'  But  I  prate  ;  doubtless  you  meditate  something. 
When  you  are  exalted  among  the  lords  of  epic  fame,  I 
shall  recall  with  pleasure,  and  exultingly,  the  days  of 
your  humility,  when  you  disdained  not  to  put  forth,  in 
the  same  volume  with  mine,  your  '  Religious  Musings,' 
and  that  other  poem  from  the  'Joan  of  Arc,'  those 
promising  first-fruits  of  high  renown  to  come.  You 
have  learning,  you  have  fancy,  you  have  enthusiasm, 
you  have  strength,  and  amplitude  of  wing  enow  for 
flights  like  those  I  recommend.  In  the  vast  and  unex- 
plored regions  of  fairy-land,  there  is  ground  enough 
unfound  and  uncultivated  ;  search  there,  and  realize 
your  favorite  Susquehannah  scheme.  In  all  our  com- 
parisons of  taste,  I  do  not  know  whether  I  have  ever 
heard  your  opinion  of  a  poet,  very  dear  to  me,  —  the 
now-out-of-fashion  Cowley.  Favor  me  with  your  judg- 
ment of  him,  and  tell  me  if  his  prose  essays,  in  partic- 
ular, as  well  as  no  inconsiderable  part  of  his  verse, 
be  not  delicious.  I  prefer  the  graceful  rambling  of 
his  essays,  even  to  the  courtly  elegance  and  ease  of 
Addison ;  abstracting  from  this   the  latter's  exquisite 

humor. 

****** 

"  When  the  little  volume  is  printed,  send  me  three 
or  four,  at  all  events  not  more  than  six  copies,  and  tell 
me  if  I  put  you  to  any  additional  expense,  by  printing 
with  you.  I  have  no  thought  of  the  kind,  and  in  that 
case  must  reimburse  you." 

In  the  commencement  of  this  year,  Coleridge  re- 
moved from  Bristol  to  a  cottage  at  Nether  Stowey, 
to  embody  his  favorite  dream  of  a  cottage  Hfe,.     This 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  57 

change  of  place  probably  delayed  the  printing  of  the 
volume ;  and  Coleridge,  busy  with  a  thousand  specula- 
tions, became  irregular  in  replying  to  the  letters  with 
writing  which  Lamb  solaced  his  dreary  hours.  The 
following  are  the  most  interesting  portions  of  the  only 
letters  which  remain  of  this  year. 


TO   MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"Jan.  10th,  1797. 

"  Priestley,  whom  I  sin  in  almost  adoring,  speaks  of 
'  such  a  choice  of  company,  as  tends  to  keep  up  that 
right  bent,  and  firmness,  of  mind,  which  a  necessary 
intercourse  with  the  world  would  otherwise  warp  and 
relax.'  '  Such  fellowship  is  the  true  balsam  of  hfe ;  its 
cement  is  infinitely  more  durable  than  that  of  the 
friendships  of  the  world,  and  it  looks  for  its  proper 
fruit,  and  complete  gratification,  to  the  life  beyond  the 
grave.'  Is  there  a  possible  chance  for  such  an  one  as 
I  to  realize  in  this  world  such  friendships  ?  Where  am  I 
to  look  for  'em  ?  What  testimonials  shall  I  bring  of  my 
being  worthy  of  such  friendship  ?  Alas  !  the  great  and 
good  go  together  in  separate  herds,  and  leave  such  as 
I  to  lag  far,  far  behind  in  all  intellectual,  and,  far  more 
grievous  to  say,  in  all  moral  accomplishments.  Cole- 
ridge, I  have  not  one  truly  elevated  character  among 
my  acquaintance :  not  one  Christian  :  not  one,  but 
undervalues  Christianity  —  singly  what  am  I  to  do? 
Wesley  (have  you  read  his  life  ?)  was  he  not  an  ele- 
vated character  ?  Wesley  has  said,  '  Religion  is  not  a 
solitary  thing.'  Alas  !  it  necessarily  is  so  with  me,  or 
next  to  solitary.  'Tis  true  you  write  to  me.  But  cor- 
respondence by  letter,  and  personal  intimacy,  are  very 


58  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

widely  different.  Do,  do  write  to  me,  and  do  some  good 
to  my  mind,  already  how  much  '  warped  and  relaxed ' 
bj  the  world  !  'Tis  the  conclusion  of  another  evening. 
Good-night.     God  have  us  all  in  his  keeping. 

"  If  you  are  sufficiently  at  leisure,  oblige  me  with  an 
account  of  your  plan  of  life  at  Stowey  —  your  literary 
occupations  and  prospects  —  in  short,  make  me  ac- 
quainted with  every  circumstance  which,  as  relating  to 
you,  can  be  interesting  to  me.  Are  you  yet  a  Berk- 
leyan  ?  Make  me  one.  I  rejoice  in  being,  specula- 
tively, a  necessarian.  Would  to  God,  I  were  habitu- 
ally a  practical  one  !  Confirm  me  in  the  faith  of  that 
great  and  glorious  doctrine,  and  keep  me  steady  in  the 
contemplation  of  it.  You  some  time  since  expressed 
an  intention  you  had  of  finishing  some  extensive  work 
on  the  Evidences  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion. 
Have  you  let  that  intention  go  ?  Or  are  you  doing 
anything  towards  it  ?  Make  to  yourself  other  ten  tal- 
ents. My  letter  is  full  of  nothingness.  I  talk  of  noth- 
ing. But  I  must  talk.  I  love  to  write  to  you.  I 
take  a  pride  in  it.  It  makes  me  think  less  meanly  of 
myself.  It  makes  me  think  myself  not  totally  discon- 
nected from  the  better  part  of  mankind.  I  know  I  am 
too  dissatisfied  with  the  beings  around  me  ;  but  I  can- 
not help  occasionally  exclaiming,  '  Woe  is  me,  that  I 
am  constrained  to  dwell  with  Meshech,  and  to  have  my 
habitation  amono;  the  tents  of  Kedar.'  I  know  I  am 
noways  better  in  practice  than  my  neighbors,  but  I 
have  a  taste  for  Religion,  an  occasional  earnest  aspira- 
tion after  perfection,  which  they  have  not.  I  gain 
nothing  by  being  with  such  as  myself —  we  encourage 
one  another  in  mediocrity.  I  am  always  longing  to  be 
with  men  more  excellent  than  myself.     All  this  must 


LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE.  59 

sound  odd  to  you,  but  these  are  my  predominant  feel- 
ings, when  I  sit  down  to  write  to  you,  and  I  should 
put  force  upon  my  mind  were  I  to  reject  them.  Yet  I 
rejoice,  and  feel  my  privilege  with  gratitude,  when  I 
have  been  reading  some  wise  book,  such  as  I  have  just 
been  reading,  '  Priestley  on  Philosophical  Necessity,'  in 
the  thought  that  I  enjoy  a  kind  of  communion,  a  kind 
of  friendship  even,  with  the  great  and  good.  Books 
are  to  me  instead  of  fi'iends.  I  wish  they  did  not  re- 
semble the  latter  in  their  scarceness. 

"  And  how  does  little  David  Hartley  ?  '  Ecquid 
in  antiquam  virtutem?^  Does  his  mighty  name  work 
wonders  yet  upon  his  little  frame  and  opening  mind  ? 
I  did  not  distinctly  understand  you  —  you  don't  mean 
to  make  an  actual  ploughman  of  him  ?  Is  Lloyd  with 
you  yet  ?  Are  you  intimate  with  Southey  ?  What 
poems  is  he  about  to  publish  ?  —  he  hath  a  most  pro- 
lific brain,  and  is  indeed  a  most  sweet  poet.  But  how 
can  you  answer  all  the  various  mass  of  interrogation  I 
have  put  to  you  in  the  course  of  the  sheet  ?  Write 
back  just  what  you  like,  only  write  something,  how- 
ever brief.  I  have  now  nigh  finished  my  page,  and 
got  to  the  end  of  another  evening  (Monday  evening), 
and  my  eyes  are  heavy  and  sleepy,  and  my  brain  un- 
suggestive.  I  have  just  heart  enough  awake  to  say 
good-night  once  more,  and  God  love  you,  my  dear 
friend ;  God  love  us  all.  Mary  bears  an  affectionate 
remembrance  of  you. 

"  Charles  Lamb." 

A  poem  of  Coleridge,  emulous  of  Southey 's  "  Joan 
of  Arc,"  which  he  proposed  to  call  the  "  Maid  of  Or- 
'eans,"   on  which  Lamb  had  made  some  critical  re- 


60  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

marks,  produced  the  liumorous  recantation  with  which 
the  following  letter  opens. 


TO   MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  Feb.  13th,  1797. 

"Your  poem  is  altogether  admirable  —  parts  of  it 
are  even  exquisite  —  in  particular  your  personal  ac- 
count of  the  Maid  far  surpasses  anything  of  the  sort  in 
Soutliey.  I  perceived  all  its  excellences,  on  a  first 
reading,  as  readily  as  now  you  have  been  removing  a 
supposed  film  from  my  eyes.  I  was  only  struck  with  a 
certain  faulty  disproportion,  in  the  matter  and  the  style^ 
which  I  still  think  I  perceive,  between  these  lines  and 
the  former  ones.  I  had  an  end  in  view,  I  wished  to 
make  you  reject  the  poem,  only  as  being  discordant 
with  the  other,  and  in  subservience  to  that  end,  it  was 
politically  done  in  me  to  overpass,  and  make  no  men- 
tion of  merit,  which  could  you  think  me  capable  of 
overlooking,  might  reasonably  damn  forever  in  your 
judgment  all  pretensions,  in  me,  to  be  critical.  There 
—  I  will  be  judged  by  Lloyd,  whether  I  have  not 
made  a  very  handsome  recantation.  I  was  in  the  case 
of  a  man,  whose  friend  has  asked  him  his  opinion  of  a 
certain  young  lady — the  deluded  wight  gives  judgment 
against  her  in  toto  —  don't  hke  her  face,  her  walk,  her 
manners  ;  finds  fault  with  her  eyebrows ;  can  see  no 
wit  in  her;  his  friend  looks  blank,  he  begins  to  smell 
a  rat  —  wind  veers  about  —  he  acknowledges  her  good 
sense,  her  judgment  in  dress,  a  certain  simplicity  of 
manners  and  honesty  of  heart,  something  too  in  her 
manners  which  gains  upon  you  after  a  short  acquaint- 
ance,—  and    then  her  accurate   pronunciation  of  the 


LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE.  61 

French  language,  and  a  pretty  uncultivated  taste  in 
drawing.  The  reconciled  gentleman  smiles  applause, 
squeezes  him  by  the  hand,  and  hopes  he  will  do  him 

the  honor  of  taking  a  bit  of  dinner  with  Mrs.  

and  him,  —  a  plain  family  dinner, — some  day  next 
week ;  '  for,  I  suppose,  you  never  heard  we  were 
married.  I'm  glad  to  see  you  like  my  wife,  how- 
ever ;  you'll  come  and  see  her,  ha  ? '  Now  am  I  too 
proud  to  retract  entirely  ?  Yet  I  do  perceive  I  am  in 
some  sort  straitened:  you  are  manifestly  wedded  to 
this  poem,  and  what  fancy  has  joined  let  no  man  sep- 
arate.    I  turn  me  to  the  '  Joan  of  Arc,'  second  book. 

"  The  solemn  openings  of  it  are  with  sounds,  which 
LI.  would  say  'are  silence  to  the  mind.'  The  deep 
preluding  strains  are  fitted  to  initiate  the  mind,  with 
a  pleasing  awe,  into  the  sublimest  mysteries  of  theory 
concerning  man's  nature,  and  his  noblest  destination  — 
the  philosophy  of  a  first  cause  —  of  subordinate  agents 
in  creation,  superior  to  man  —  the  subserviency  of 
Pagan  worship  and  Pagan  faith  to  the  introduction  of 
a  purer  and  more  perfect  religion,  which  you  so  ele- 
gantly describe  as  winning,  with  gradual  steps,  her 
difficult  way  northward  from  Bethabra.  After  all  this 
Cometh  Joan,  a  publican'' s  daughter,  sitting  on  an  ale- 
house bench,  and  marking  the  swingings  of  the  sign- 
board, finding  a  poor  man,  his  wife  and  six  children, 
starved  to  death  with  cold,  and  thence  roused  into  a 
state  of  mind  proper  to  receive  visions,  emblematical  of 
equality  ;  which,  what  the  devil  Joan  had  to  do  with,  I 
don't  know,  or,  indeed,  with  the  French  and  American 
revolutions,  though  that  needs  no  pardon,  it  is  executed 
so  nobly.  After  all,  if  you  perceive  no  dispro2:)ortion, 
all  argument  is  vain  :  I  do  not  so  much  object  to  parts 


62  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

Again,  when  you  talk  of  building  your  fame  on  these 
lines  in  preference  to  the  'Religious  Musings,'  I  can- 
not help  conceiving  of  you,  and  of  the  author  of  that, 
as  two  different  persons,  and  I  think  you  a  very 
vain  man. 

"  I  have  been  re-reading  your  letter ;  much  of  it  I 
could  dispute,  but  with  the  latter  part  of  it,  in  which 
you  compare  the  two  Joans  with  respect  to  their  pre- 
dispositions for  fanaticism,  I,  toto  corde,  coincide  ;  onlv 
I  think  that  Southey's  strength  rather  lies  in  the  de- 
scription of  the  emotions  of  the  Maid  under  the  weight 
of  inspiration,  —  these  (I  see  no  mighty  difference  be- 
tween her  describing  them  or  ;i/ou  describing  them), 
these  if  you  only  equal,  the  previous  admirers  of  his 
poem,  as  is  natural,  will  prefer  his,  —  if  you  surpass, 
prejudice  will  scarcely  allow  it,  and  I  scarce  think 
you  will  surpass,  though  your  specimen  at  the  con- 
clusion, I  am  in  earnest,  I  think  very  nigh  equals 
them.  And  in  an  account  of  a  fanatic  or  of  a  prophet, 
the  description  of  her  emotions  is  expected  to  be  most 
highly  finished.  By  the  way,  I  spoke  far  too  dispar- 
agingly of  your  lines,  and,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  pur- 
posely. I  should  like  you  to  specify,  or  particularize ; 
the  story  of  the  'Tottering  Eld,'  of  'his  eventful  years 
all  come  and  gone,'  is  too  general ;  why  not  make  him 
a  soldier,  or  some  character,  however,  in  which  he  has 
been  witness  to  frequency  of  '  cruel  wrong  and  strange 
distress  ! '  I  think  I  should.  When  I  laughed  at  the 
'miserable  man  crawling  from  beneath  the  coverture,' 
I  wonder  I  did  not  perceive  that  it  was  a  laugh  of  hor- 
ror —  such  as  I  have  laughed  at  Dante's  picture  of  the 
famished  Ugolino.  Without  falsehood,  I  perceive  an 
hundred  beauties  in  your  narrative.     Yet  I  wonder  you 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  63 

do  not  perceive  something  out-of-the-way,  something 
unsimple  and  artificial,  in  the  expression  'voiced  a  sad 
tale.'  I  hate  made-dishes  at  the  muses'  banquet.  I 
beheve  I  was  wrong  in  most  of  my  other  objections. 
But  surely  'hailed  him  immortal,'  adds  nothing  to  the 
terror  of  the  man's  death,  which  it  was  your  business 
to  heighten,  not  diminish  by  a  phrase,  which  takes 
away  all  terror  from  it.  I  like  that  line,  '  They  closed 
their  eyes  in  sleep,  nor  knew  'twas  death.'  Indeed 
there  is  scarce  a  line  I  do  not  like.  '  Turbid  ecstasy ' 
is  surely  not  so  good  as  what  you  liad  written,  '  troub- 
lous.' Turbid  rather  suits  the  muddy  kind  of  inspira- 
tion which  London  porter  confers.  The  versification 
is,  throughout,  to  my  ears  unexceptionable,  with  no 
disparagement  to  the  measure  of  the  '  Religious  Mus- 
ings,' which  is  exactly  fitted  to  the  thoughts. 

"  You  were  building  your  house  on  a  rock,  when 
you  rested  your  fame  on  that  poem.  I  can  scarce 
bring  myself  to  believe,  that  I  am  admitted  to  a  fa- 
miliar correspondence,  and  all  the  license  of  friendship, 
with  a  man  who  writes  blank  verse  like  Milton.  Now, 
this  is  delicate  flattery,  indirect  flattery.  Go  on  with 
your  'Maid  of  Orleans,'  and  be  content  to  be  second 
to  yourself.  I  shall  become  a  convert  to  it,  when  'tis 
finished. 

"  This  afternoon  I  attend  the  funeral  of  my  poor 
old  aunt,  who  died  on  Thursday.  I  own  I  am  thank- 
ful that  the  good  creature  has  ended  all  her  days  of 
suffering  and  infirmity.  She  was  to  me  the  '  cherisher 
of  infancy,'  and  one  must  fall  on  those  occasions  into 
reflections,  which  it  woxild  be  commonplace  to  enumer- 
ate, concerning  death,  '  of  chance  and  change,  and  fate 
in  human  hfe.'     Good  God,  who  could  have  foreseen 


64  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

all  this  but  four  months  back  !  I  had  reckoned,  in 
particular,  on  my  aunt's  living  many  years  ;  she  was 
a  very  hearty  old  woman.  But  she  was  a  mere  skele- 
ton before  she  died,  looked  more  like  a  corpse  tliat  had 
lain  weeks  in  the  grave,  than  one  fresli  dead.  '  Truly 
the  light  is  sweet,  and  a  pleasant  thing  it  is  for  the 
eyes  to  behold  the  sun  ;  but  let  a  man  live  many  days 
and  rejoice  in  them  all,  yet  let  him  remember  the  days 
of  darkness,  for  they  shall  be  many.'  Colei'idge,  why 
are  we  to  live  on  after  all  the  strength  and  beauty  of 
existence  are  gone,  when  all  the  life  of  life  is  fled,  as 
poor  Burns  expresses  it  ?  Tell  Lloyd  I  have  had 
thoughts  of  turning  Quaker,  and  have  been  reading, 
or  am  rather  just  beginning  to  read,  a  most  capi- 
tal book,  good  thoughts  in  good  language,  William 
Penn's  'No  Cross,  no  Crown.'  I  like  it  immensely. 
Unluckily  I  went  to  one  of  his  meetings,  tell  him,  in 
St.  John  Street,  yesterday,  and  saw  a  man  under  all 
the  agitations  and  workino-s  of  a  fanatic,  who  believed 
himself  under  the  influence  of  some  'inevitable  pres- 
ence.' This  cured  me  of  Quakerism  ;  I  love  it  in  the 
books  of  Penn  and  Woolman,  but  I  detest  the  vanity 
of  a  man  thinking  he  speaks  by  the  Spirit,  when  what 
he  says  an  ordinary  man  might  say  without  all  that 
quaking  and  trembling.  In  the  midst  of  his  inspira- 
tion, and  the  effects  of  it  were  most  noisy,  was  handed 
into  the  midst  of  the  meeting  a  most  terrible  black- 
guard Wapping  sailor ;  the  poor  man,  I  believe,  had 
rather  have  been  in  the  hottest  part  of  an  engagement, 
for  the  congregation  of  broad-brims,  together  with  the 
ravings  of  the  prophet,  were  too  much  for  his  gravity, 
though  I  saw  even  he  had  delicacy  enough,  not  to 
laugh  out.     And  the  inspired  gentleman,  though  his 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  65 

manner  was  so  supernatural,  yet  neither  talked  nor 
professed  to  talk  anything  more  than  good  sober  sense, 
common  morality,  with  now  and  then  a  declaration 
of  not  speaking  from  himself.  Among  other  things, 
looking  back  to  his  childhood  and  early  youth,  he  told 
the  meeting  what  a  graceless  young  dog  he  had  been, 
that  in  his  youth  he  had  a  good  share  of  wit :  reader, 
if  thou  hadst  seen  the  gentleman,  thou  wouldst  have 
sworn  that  it  must  indeed  have  been  many  years  ago, 
for  his  rueful  physiognomy  would  have  scared  away 
the  playful  goddess  from  the  meeting,  where  he  pre- 
sided, forever.  A  wit !  a  wit !  what  could  he  mean  ? 
Lloyd,  it  minded  me  of  Falkland  in  the  Rivals,  '  Am 
I  frill  of  wit  and  humor  ?  No,  indeed  you  are  not. 
Am  I  the  life  and  soul  of  every  company  I  come  into  ? 
No,  it  cannot  be  said  you  are.'  That  hard-faced  gen- 
tleman, a  wit !  Why,  nature  wrote  on  his  fanatic  fore- 
head fifty  years  ago,  'Wit  never  comes,  that  comes  to 
all.'  I  should  be  as  scandalized  at  a  hon  mot  issuing 
from  his  oracle-looking  mouth,  as  to  see  Cato  go  down 
a  country-dance.  God  love  you  all.  You  are  very 
good  to  submit  to  be  pleased  with  reading  my  nothings. 
'Tis  the  privilege  of  fr'iendship  to  talk  nonsense,  and  to 
have  her  nonsense  respected.  —  Yours  ever, 

"C.  Lamb." 


TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  April  7th,  1797. 

"  Your  last  letter  was  dated  the  10th  February ;  in 
it  you  promised  to  write  again  the  next  day.  At  least, 
I  did  not  expect  so  long,  so  unfriend-hke  a  silence. 
There  was  a  time.  Col.,  when  a  remissness  of  this  sort 

VOL.    I.  6 


'oO  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

in  a  dear  friend  would  have  lain  very  heavy  on  my 
mind,  but  latterly  I  have  been  too  familiar  with  neg- 
lect to  feel  much  from  the  semblance  of  it.  Yet,  to 
suspect  one's  self  overlooked,  and  in  the  way  to  obliv- 
ion, is  a  feeling  rather  humbhng ;  perhaps,  as  tending 
to  self-mortification,  not  unfavorable  to  the  spiritual 
state.  Still,  as  you  meant  to  confer  no  benefit  on  the 
soul  of  your  friend,  you  do  not  stand  quite  clear  from 
the  imputation  of  unkindliness  (a  word,  by  which  I 
mean  the  diminutive  of  unkindness).  And  then  Da- 
vid Hartley  was  unwell ;  and  how  is  the  small  philos- 
opher, the  minute  philosopher?  and  David's  mother? 
Coleridge,  I  am  not  trifling,  nor  are  these  matter-of- 
fact  questions  only.  You  are  all  very  dear  and  pre- 
cious to  me ;  do  what  you  will,  Col.,  you  may  hurt  me 
and  vex  me  by  your  silence,  but  you  cannot  estrange 
my  heart  from  you  all.  I  cannot  scatter  friendships 
like  chuck-farthings,  nor  let  them  drop  from  mine 
hand  like  hourglass  sand.  I  have  but  two  or  three 
people  in  the  world  to  whom  I  am  more  than  indiffer- 
ent, and  I  can't  afford  to  whistle  them  off  to  the  winds. 
"  My  sister  has  recovered  from  her  illness.  May 
that  merciful  God  make  tender  my  heart,  and  make 
me  as  thankful,  as  in  my  distress  I  was  earnest,  in  my 
prayers.  Congratulate  me  on  an  ever-present  and 
never-alienable  friend  like  her.  And  do,  do  insert,  if 
you  have  not  lost,  my  dedication.  It  will  have  lost 
half  its  value  by  coming  so  late.  If  you  really  are 
going  on  with  that  volume,  I  shall  be  enabled  in  a  day 
or  two  to  send  you  a  short  poem  to  insert.  ,  Now,  do 
answer  this.  Friendship,  and  acts  of  friendship,  should 
be  reciprocal,  and  free  as  the  air ;  a  friend  stould  never 
be  reduced  to  beg  an  alms  of  his  fellow.     Yet  I  will 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  67 

beg  an  alms ;  I  entreat  you  to  write,  and  tell  me  all 
about  poor  Lloyd,  and  all  of  you.  God  love  and  pre- 
serve you  all. 

"C.  Lamb." 

TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  June  13th,  1797. 
"  I  stared  with  wild  wonderment  to  see  thy  well- 
known  hand  again.  It  revived  many  a  pleasing  rec- 
ollection of  an  epistolary  intercoui'se,  of  late  strangely 
suspended,  once  the  pride  of  my  life.  Before  I  even 
opened  thy  letter,  I  figured  to  myself  a  sort  of  compla- 
cency which  my  little  hoard  at  home  would  feel  at  re- 
ceiving the  new-comer  into  the  little  drawer  where  I 
keep  my  treasures  of  this  kind.  You  have  done  well 
in  writing  to  me.  The  little  room  (was  it  not  a  httle 
one  ?)  at  the  Salutation  was  already  in  the  way  of  be- 
coming a  fading  idea !  it  had  begun  to  be  classed  in 
my  memory  with  those  '  wanderings  with  a  fair-hair'd 
maid,'  in  the  recollection  of  which  I  feel  I  have  no 
property.  You  press  me,  very  kindly  do  you  press 
me,  to  come  to  Stowey ;  obstacles,  strong  as  death, 
prevent  me  at  present ;  maybe  I  may  be  able  to  come 
before  the  year  is  out ;  believe  me,  I  will  come  as  soon 
as  I  can,  but  I  dread  naming  a  probable  time.  It  de- 
pends on  fifty  things,  besides  the  expense,  which  is  not 
nothing.  As  to  Richardson,  caprice  may  grant  what 
caprice  only  refused,  and  it  is  no  more  hardship,  rightly 
considered,  to  be  dependent  on  him  for  pleasure,  than 
to  lie  at  the  mercy  of  the  rain  and  sunshine  for  the  en- 
joyment of  a  holiday :  in  either  case  we  are  not  to  look 
for  a  suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature.  '  Grill  will  be 
grill.'     Vide  Spenser. 


68  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  V'  . 

"  I  could  not  but  smile  at  the  compromise  you  ma]^e 
with  me  for  printing  Lloyd's  poems  first ;  but  there  -is 
in  nature,  I  fear,  too  many  tendencies  to  envy  £iSid 
jealousy  not  to  justify  you  in  your  apology.  Yet,  if 
any  one  is  welcome  to  preeminence  from  me,  it  is 
Lloyd,  for  he  would  be  the  last  to  desire  it.  So  pray, 
let  his  name  uniformly  precede  mine,  for  it  would  be 
treating  me  like  a  child  to  suppose  it  could  give  me 
pain.  Yet,  alas !  I  am  not  insusceptible  of  the  bad  pas- 
sions. Thank  God,  I  have  the  ingenuousness  to  be 
ashamed  of  them.  I  am  dearly  fond  of  Charles  Llovd ; 
he  is  all  goodness,  and  I  have  too  mvich  of  the  world  in 
my  composition  to  feel  myself  thoroughly  deserving  of 
his  friendship. 

"  Lloyd  tells  me  that  Sheridan  put  you  upon  writing 
your  tragedy.  I  hope  you  are  only  Coleridgeizing 
when  you  talk  of  finishing  it  in  a  few  days.  Shak- 
speare  was  a  more  modest  man,  but  you  best  know 
your  own  power. 

"  Of  my  last  poem  you  speak  slightingly ;  surely  the 
longer  stanzas  were  pretty  tolerable ;  at  least  there  was 
one  good  hne  in  it, 

'  Thick-shaded  trees,  with  dark  green  leaf  rich  clad.' 

"  To  adopt  your  own  expression,  I  call  this  a  '  rich ' 
Kne,  a  fine  full  line.  And  some  others  I  thought  even 
beautiful.  Believe  me,  my  little  gentleman  will  feel 
some  repugnance  at  riding  behind  in  the  basket,  though, 
I  confess,  in  pretty  good  company.  Your  picture  of 
idiocy,  with  the  sugar-loaf  head,  is  exquisite ;  but  are 
you  not  too  severe  upon  our  more  favored  brethren  in 
fatuity  ?  I  send  you  a  trifling  letter ;  but  you  have 
only  to  think  that  I  have  been  skimming  the  superfi- 


LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE.  69 

^s  of  my  mind,  and  found  it  only  froth.  Now,  do 
Write  again ;  you  cannot  believe  how  I  long  and  love 
always  to  hear  about  you.     Yours,  most  affectionately, 

"Charles  Lamb." 


TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  June  24th,  1797. 

"  Did  you  seize  the  grand  opportunity  of  seeing  Kos- 
ciusko while  he  was  at  Bristol  ?  I  never  saw  a  hero  ; 
I  wonder  how  they  look.  I  have  been  reading  a  most 
curious  romance-like  work,  called  the  '  Life  of  John 
Buncle,  Esq.'  'Tis  very  interesting,  and  an  extraor- 
dinary compound  of  all  manner  of  subjects,  from  the 
depth  of  the  ludicrous  to  the  heights  of  subhme  relig- 
ious truth.  There  is  much  abstruse  science  in  it  above 
my  cut,  and  an  infinite  fund  of  pleasantry.  John 
Buncle  is  a  famous  fine  man,  formed  in  nature's  most 
eccentric  hovu*.  I  am  ashamed  of  what  I  write.  But 
I  have  no  topic  to  talk  of.  I  see  nobody  ;  and  sit,  and 
read,  or  walk  alone,  and  hear  nothing.  I  am  quite 
lost  to  conversation  from  disuse ;  and  out  of  the  sphere 
of  my  little  family,  who,  I  am  thankftil,  are  dearer  and 
dearer  to  me  every  day,  I  see  no  face  that  brightens  up 
at  my  approach.  My  fi-iends  are  at  a  distance  (mean- 
ing Birmingham  and  Stowey)  ;  worldly  hopes  are  at  a 
low  ebb  with  me,  and  unworldly  thoughts  are  not  yet 
familiarized  to  me,  though  I  occasionally  indulge  in 
them.  Still  I  feel  a  calm  not  unlike  content.  I  fear 
it  is  sometimes  more  akin  to  physical  stupidity  than 
to  a  heaven-flowing  serenity  and  peace.  What  right 
have  I  to  obtrude  all  this  upon  you  ?  and  what  is  such 
a  letter  to  you  ?  and  if  I  come  to  Stowey,  what  con- 


70  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

versation  can  I  furnish  to  compensate  my  friend  for 
those  stores  of  knowledge  and  of  fancy  ;  those  delight- 
ful treasures  of  wisdom,  which,  I  know,  he  will  open 
to  me  ?  But  it  is  better  to  give  than  to  receive  ;  and 
I  was  a  very  patient  hearer,  and  docile  scholar,  in  our 
winter  evening  meetings  at  Mr.  May's ;  was  I  not, 
Col.  ?  What  I  have  owed  to  thee,  my  heart  can  ne'er 
forget. 

"  God  love  you  and  yours.  "  C.  L." 

At  length  the  small  volume  containing  the  poems 
of  Coleridge,  Lloyd,  and  Lamb,  was  published  by  Mr. 
Cottle  at  Bristol.  It  excited  little  attention ;  but  Lamb 
had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  his  dedication  to  his  sister 
printed  in  good  set  form,  after  his  own  fashion,  and  of 
witnessing  the  delight  and  pride  with  which  she  re- 
ceived it.  This  little  book,  now  very  scarce,  had  the 
following  motto  expressive  of  Coleridge's  feeling  tow- 
ards his  associates  :  —  Duplex  nobis  vinculu7n,  et  amici- 
tice  et  similium  junctarumque  Camoenarum  ;  quod  utinam 
neque  mors  solvat,  neque  temporis  longinquitas.  Lamb's 
share  of  the  work  consists  of  eight  sonnets ;  four  short 
fragments  of  blank  verse,  of  which  the  "  Grandame"  is 
the  principal ;  a  poem,  called  the  "  Tomb  of  Douglas ;  " 
some  verses  to  Charles  Lloyd  ;  and  a  vision  of  "  Re- 
pentance ;  which  are  all  published  in  the  last  edition 
of  his  poetical  works  except  one  of  the  sonnets,  which 
was  addressed  to  Mrs.  Siddons,  and  the  "  Tomb  of 
Douglas,"  which  was  justly  omitted  as  commonplace 
and  vapid.  They  only  occupy  twenty-eight  duodec- 
imo pages,  within  which  space  was  comprised  all  that 
Lamb  at  this  time  had  written  which  he  deemed 
worth  preserving. 


LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE.  71 

The  following  letter  from  Lamb  to  Coleridge  seems 
to  have  been  written  on  receiving  the  first  copy  of  the 
work. 

TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"Dec.  10th,  1797. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  now  relish  yom-  poetical 
present  so  thoroughly  as  I  feel  it  deserves ;  but  I  do 
not  the  less  thank  Lloyd  and  you  for  it. 

"  Before  I  offer,  what  alone  I  have  to  offer,  a  few 
obvious  remarks,  on  the  poems  you  sent  me,  I  can  but 
notice  the  odd  coincidence  of  two  young  men,  in  one 
age,  carolling  their  grandmothers.  Love,  what  L. 
calls  the  '  feverish  and  romantic  tie,'  hath  too  long 
domineered  over  all  the  charities  of  home :  the  dear 
domestic  ties  of  father,  brother,  husband.  The  amiable 
and  benevolent  Cowper  has  a  beautiful  passage  in  his 
'Task,'  —  some  natural  and  painful  reflections  on  his 
deceased  parents :  and  Hayley's  sweet  lines  to  his 
mother  are  notoriously  the  best  things  he  ever  wrote. 
Cowper's  lines,  some  of  them  are  — 

'  How  gladly  would  the  man  recall  to  life 
The  boy's  neglected  sire;  a  mother,  too! 
That  softer  name,  perhaps,  more  gladly  still. 
Might  he  demand  them  at  the  gates  of  death.' 

"I  cannot  but  smUe  to  see  my  granny  so  gayly 
decked  forth :  though,  I  think,  whoever  altered  '  thy  ' 
praises  to  '  her  '  praises  — '  thy  '  honored  memory  to 
'  her '  honored  memory,  did  wrong  —  they  best  ex- 
prest  my  feelings.  There  is  a  pensive  state  of  recol- 
lection, in  which  the  mind  is  disposed  to  apostrophize 
the  departed  objects  of  its  attachment ;  and,  breaking 
loose   from   grammatical   precision,  changes  from   the 


72  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

first  to  the  third,  and  from  the  third  to  the  first  per- 
son, just  as  the  randor^  fancy  or  the  feehng  directs. 
Among  Lloyd's  sonnets,  6th,  7th,  8th,  9th,  and  11th, 
are  eminently  beautiful.  I  think  him  too  lavish  of  his 
expletives;  the  do's  and  did^s,  when  they  occur  too 
often,  bring  a  quaintness  with  them  along  with  their 
simphcity,  or  rather  air  of  antiquity,  which  the  patrons 
of  them  seem  desirous  of  conveying. 

"  Another  time,  I  may  notice  more  particularly 
Lloyd's,  Southey's,  Dermody's  Sonnets.  I  shrink  from 
them  now :  my  teasing  lot  makes  me  too  confused  for  a 
clear  judgment  of  things,  too  selfish  for  sympathy  ;  and 
these  ill-digested,  meaningless  remarks,  I  have  imposed 
on  myself  as  a  task,  to  lull  reflection,  as  well  as  to 
show  you  I  did  not  neglect  reading  your  valuable  pres- 
ent. Return  my  acknowledgments  to  Lloyd;  you 
two  seem  to  be  about  realizing  an  Elysium  upon 
earth,  and,  no  doubt,  I  shall  be  happier.  Take  my 
best  wishes.      Remember   me   most   affectionately   to 

Mrs.   C ,    and   give   little   David    Hartley  —  God 

bless  its  little  heart !  —  a  kiss  for  me.  Bring  him  up 
to  know  the  meaning  of  liis  Christian  name,  and 
what  that  name  (imposed  upon  him)  will  demand  of 
him. 

"  God  love  you !  "  C.  Lamb. 

"  I  write,  for  one  thing  to  say,  that  I  shall  write  no 
more  till  you  send  me  word,  where  you  are,  for  you 
are  so  soon  to  move. 

"  My  sister  is  pretty  well,  thank  God.  We  think 
of  you  very  often.  God  bless  you :  continue  to  be 
my  correspondent,  and  I  will  strive  to  fancy  that 
this  world  is  Twt  '  all  barrenness.' " 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  73 

After  several  disappointments,  occasioned  by  the 
state  of  business  in  the  India  House,  Lamb  achieved 
his  long-checked  wish  of  visiting  Coleridge  at  Stowey, 
in  company  with  his  sister,  without  whom  he  felt  it 
almost  a  sin  to  enjoy  anything.  Coleridge,  shortly 
after,  abandoned  his  scheme  of  a  cottage-life ;  and,  in 
the  following  year,  left  England  for  Germany.  Lamb, 
however,  was  not  now  so  lonely  as  when  he  wrote  to 
Coleridge  imploring  his  correspondence  as  the  only 
comfort  of  his  sorrows  and  labors ;  for,  through  the 
instrumentality  of  Coleridge,  he  was  now  rich  in 
friends.  Among  them  he  marked  George  Dyer,  the 
guileless  and  simple-hearted,  whose  love  of  learning 
was  a  passion,  and  who  found,  even  in  the  forms  of 
verse,  objects  of  worship  ;  Southey,  in  the  young  vigor 
of  his  genius  ;  and  Wordsworth,  the  great  regenera- 
tor of  English  poetry,  preparing  for  his  long  contest 
with  the  glittering  forms  of  inane  phraseology  which 
had  usurped  the  dominion  of  the  public  mind,  and 
with  the  cold  mockeries  of  scorn  with  which  their 
supremacy  was  defended.  By  those  the  beauty  of 
his  character  was  felt ;  the  original  cast  of  his  pow- 
ers was  appreciated ;  and  his  peculiar  humor  was  de- 
tected and  kindled  into  fitfiil  life. 


74  CORRESPONDENCE   WITH   SOUTHEY. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

[1798.] 
lamb's  literary  efforts  and  correspondence  with 

SOUTHEY. 

In  the  year  1798,  the  blank  verse  of  Lloyd  and 
Lamb,  which  had  been  contamed  in  the  volume  pub- 
lished in  conjunction  with  Coleridge,  was,  with  some 
additions  by  Lloyd,  published  in  a  thin  duodecimo, 
price  2s.  Qd.,  under  the  title  of  "  Blank  Verse,  by 
Charles  Lloyd  and  Charles  Lamb."  This  unpretend- 
ing book  was  honored  by  a  brief  and  scornful  notice 
in  the  catalogue  of  "  The  Monthly  Review,"  in  the 
small  print  of  which  the  works  of  the  poets  who  are 
now  recognized  as  the  greatest  ornaments  of  their 
age,  and  who  have  impressed  it  most  deeply  by  their 
genius,  were  usually  named  to  be  dismissed  with  a 
sneer.  After  a  contemptuous  notice  of  "  The  Mourn- 
ful Muse "  of  Lloyd,  Lamb  receives  his  quietus  in  a 
line :  — "  Mr.  Lamb,  the  joint  author  of  this  little 
volume,  seems  to  be  very  properly  associated  with  his 
plaintive   companion."  * 

In  this  year  Lamb  composed  his  prose  tale,  "  Rosa- 
mund Gray,"  and  published  it  in  a  volume  of  the 
same  size  and  price  with  the  last,  under  the  title  of 
"  A  Tale  of  Rosamund  Gray  and  Old  Blind  Margaret," 
which,  having  a  semblance  of  story,  sold  much  better 
than  his  poems,  and  added  a  few  pounds  to  his  slender 
income.  This  miniature  romance  is  unique  in  Eng- 
lish literature.     It  bears  the  impress  of  a  recent  pe- 

*  Monthly  Review,  Sept.  1798. 


CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  SOUTHEY.        75 

rusal  of  "  The  Man  of  Feeling,"  and  "  Julia  de  Rou- 
bign^ ; "  and  while    on    the    one   hand    it    wants    the 
graphic  force  and  dehcate  touches  of  Mackenzie,  it  is 
informed  with  deeper  feeling   and  breathes  a  diviner 
morality  than  the  most  charming  of  his  tales.     Lamb 
never    possessed    the   faculty   of  constructing    a    plot 
either  for  drama  or  novel ;  and  while  he  luxuriated 
in  the  humor  of  Smollett,  the  wit  of  Fieldinsr,  or  the 
solemn  pathos  of  Richardson,  he  was  not  amused,  but 
perplexed,  by  the  attempt  to  thread  the  windings  of 
story  which  conduct  to  their  most  exquisite  passages 
through  the  maze  of  adventure.     In  this  tale,  nothing 
is  made  out  with  distinctness,  except  the  rustic  piety 
and  grace  of  the  lovely  girl  and  her  venerable  grand- 
mother, which  are  pictured  with  such  earnestness  and 
simplicity  as  might   beseem  a  fragment  of  the  book 
of  Ruth.     The  villain  who  lays  waste  their  humble 
joys  is  a  murky  phantom  without  individuality;   the 
events  are  obscured  by  the  haze  of  sentiment  which 
hovers  over  them  ;  and  the  narrative  gives  way  to  the 
reflections  of  the   author,   who   is   mingled  with   the 
persons  of  the  tale  in  visionary  confusion,  and  gives 
to  it  the  character  of  a  sweet  but  disturbed  dream.     It 
has  an  interest  now  beyond  that  of  fiction  ;  for  in  it 
we  may  trace,   "as  in  a  glass  darkly,"   the  charac- 
teristics of  the   mind   and   heart  of  the   author,  at  a 
time  when  a  change  was  coming  upon  them.     There 
are  the  dainty  sense  of  beauty  just  weaned  from   its 
palpable   object,  and   quivering  over  its  lost  images ; 
feeling  grown  retrospective  before  its  time,  and  ting- 
ing all  things  with  a  strange  solemnity  ;  hints  of  that 
craving  after  immediate  appliances  which  might  give 
impulse  to  a  harassed  frame,  and  confidence  to  strug- 


76        CORKESPONDENCE  WITH  SOUTHEY. 

gling  fancy,  and  of  tliat  escape  from  the  pressure 
of  agony  into  flmtastic  mirth,  which  in  after-Hfe 
made  Lamb  a  problem  to  a  stranger,  while  they  en- 
deared him  a  thousand-fold  to  those  who  really  knew 
him.  While  the  fulness  of  the  religious  sentiments, 
and  the  scriptural  cast  of  the  language,  still  partake 
of  his  early  manhood,  the  visit  of  the  narrator  of  the 
tale  to  the  churchyard  where  his  parents  lie  buried, 
after  his  nerves  had  been  strung  for  the  endeavor  by 
wine  at  the  village  inn,  and  the  half-frantic  jollity  of 
his  old  heart-broken  friend  (the  lover  of  the  tale), 
whom  he  met  there,  with  the  exquisite  benignity  of 
thought  breathing  through  the  whole,  prophesy  the 
delightful  peculiarities  and  genial  frailties  of  an  after- 
day.  The  reflections  he  makes  on  the  eulogistic  char- 
acter of  all  the  inscriptions,  are  drawn  from  his  own 
childhood ;  for  when  a  very  httle  boy,  walking  with 
his  sister  in  a  churchyard,  he  suddenly  asked  her, 
"  Mary^  where  do  the  7iau,ghty  people  lie  ?  " 

"  Rosamund  Gray"  remained  unreviewed  till  Au- 
gust, 1800,  when  it  received  the  following  notice  in 
"The  Monthly  Review's"  catalogue,  the  manufac- 
turer of  which  was  probably  more  tolerant  of  hetero- 
dox composition  in  prose  than  verse :  —  "In  the  pe- 
rusal of  this  pathetic  and  interesting  story,  the  reader 
who  has  a  mind  capable  of  enjoying  rational  and 
moral  sentiment  will  feel  much  gratification.  Mr. 
Lamb  has  here  proved  himself  skilful  in  touching  the 
nicest  feehngs  of  the  heart,  and  in  affording  great 
pleasure  to  the  imagination,  by  exhibiting  events  and 
situations  which,  in  the  hands  of  a  writer  less  conver- 
sant with  the  springs  and  energies  of  the  moral  sense^ 
would  make  a  very   '•sorry  figure.'"     While  we  ac- 


INTRODUCTION   TO   SOUTHEY.  77 

knowledge  this  scanty  praise  as  a  redeeming  trait  in 
the  lono-  series  of  critical  absurdities,  we  cannot  help 
observing  how  curiously  misplaced  all  the  laudatory 
epithets  are  ;  the  sentiment  being  profound  and  true, 
but  not  "  rational"  and  the  "  springs  and  energies 
of  the  moral  sense"  being  substituted  for  a  weakness 
which  had  a  power  of  its  own  ! 

Lamb  was  mtroduced  by  Coleridge  to  Southey  as 
early  as  the  year  1795 ;  but  no  intimacy  ensued  until 
he  accompanied  Lloyd  in  the  summer  of  1797  to  the 
little  village  of  Burton,  near  Christchurch,  in  Hamp- 
shire, where  Southey  was  then  residing,  and  where 
they  spent  a  fortnight  as  the  poet's  guests.  After 
Coleridge's  departure  for  Germany,  in  1798,  a  corre- 
spondence began  between  Lamb  and  Southey,  which 
continued  through  that  and  part  of  the  following  year  ; 
—  Southey  commmiicates  to  Lamb  his  "  Eclogues," 
which  he  was  then  preparing  for  the  press,  and  Lamb 
repaying  the  confidence  by  submitting  the  products  of 
his  own  leisure  hours  to  his  genial  critic.  If  Southey 
did  not,  in  all  respects,  compensate  Lamb  for  the  ab- 
sence of  his  earlier  friend,  he  excited  in  him  a  more  en- 
tire and  active  intellectual  sjonpathy  ;  as  the  character 
of  Southey's  mind  bore  more  resemblance  to  his  own 
than  that  of  Coleridge.  In  purity  of  thought ;  in  the 
love  of  the  minutest  vestige  of  antiquity ;  in  a  certain 
primness  of  style  bounding  in  the  rich  humor  which 
threatened  to  overflow  it ;  they  were  nearly  akin  :  both 
alike  reverenced  childhood,  and  both  had  preserved 
its  best  attributes  unspotted  from  the  world.  If  Lamb 
bowed  to  the  genius  of  Coleridge  with  a  fonder  rever- 
ence, he  felt  more  at  home  with  Southey ;  and  although 
he  did  not  pour  out  the  inmost  secrets  of  his  soul  in  his 


78  LETTERS   TO  SOUTHEY. 

letters  to  him  as  to  Coleridge,  he  gave  more  scope  to 
the  "first  sprightly  runnings"  of  his  humorous  fancy. 
Here  is  the  first  of  his  freaks  :  — 


TO   MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  My  tailor  has  brought  me  home  a  new  coat  la- 
pelled,  with  a  velvet  collar.  He  assures  me  everybody 
wears  velvet  collars  now.  Some  are  born  fashionable, 
some  achieve  fashion,  and  others,  like  your  humble 
servant,  have  fashion  thrust  upon  them.  The  rogue 
has  been  making  inroads  hitherto  by  modest  degrees, 
foisting  upon  me  an  additional  button,  recommending 
gaiters,  but  to  come  upon  me  thus  in  a  fall  tide  of  lux- 
ury, neither  becomes  him  as  a  tailor  or  the  ninth  of  a 
man.  My  meek  gentleman  was  robbed  the  other  day, 
coming  with  his  wife  and  family  in  a  one-horse  shay 
from  Hampstead ;  the  villains  rifled  him  of  four  guin- 
eas, some  shillings  and  half-pence,  and  a  bundle  of 
customers'  measures,  which  they  swore  were  bank- 
notes. They  did  not  shoot  him,  and  when  they  rode 
off,  he  addrest  them  with  profound  gratitude,  making 
a  conge :  '  Gentlemen,  I  wish  you  good-night,  and  we 
are  very  much  obliged  to  you  that  you  have  not  used 
us  ill ! '  And  this  is  the  cuckoo  that  has  had  the  au- 
dacity to  foist  upon  me  ten  buttons  on  a  side,  and  a 
black  velvet  collar.  —  A  cursed  ninth  of  a  scoundrel  I 

"  When  you  write  to  Lloyd,  he  wishes  his  Jacobin 
correspondents  to  address  him  as  Mr.  C.  L." 

The  following  letter — yet  richer  in  fun  —  bears  date 
Saturday,  July  28th,  1798.     In  order  to  make  its  allu- 


LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 


sions  intelligible,  it  is  only  necessary  to  mention  that 
Southey  was  then  contemplating  a  calendar  illustrative 
of  the  remarkable  days  of  the  year. 


TO   MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  July  28th,  1798. 

"  I  am  ashamed  that  I  have  not  thanked  you  be- 
fore this  for  the  '  Joan  of  Arc,'  but  I  did  not  know 
your  address,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  me  to  write 
through  Cottle.  The  pdem  delighted  me,  and  the 
notes  amused  me,  but  methinks  she  of  Neufchatel, 
in  the  print,  holds  her  sword  too  '  like  a  dancer.'  I 
sent  your  notice  to  Phillips,  particularly  requesting  an 
immediate  insertion,  but  I  suppose  it  came  too  late.  I 
am  sometimes  curious  to  know  what  progress  you  make 
in  that  same  '  Calendar  : '  whether  you  insert  the  nine 
worthies  and  Whittington  ?  what  you  do  or  how  you 
can  manage  when  two  Saints  meet  and  quarrel  for 
precedency  ?  Martlemas,  and  Candlemas,  and  Christ- 
mas, are  glorious  themes  for  a  writer  like  you,  antiq- 
uity-bitten, smit  with  the  love  of  boars'  heads  and 
rosemary ;  but  how  you  can  ennoble  the  1st  of  April 
I  know  not.  By  the  way  I  had  a  thing  to  say,  but  a 
certain  false  modesty  has  hitherto  prevented  me :  per- 
haps I  can  best  communicate  my  wish  by  a  hint, — 
my  birthday  is  on  the  10th  of  February,  New  Style, 
but  if  it  interferes  with  any  remarkable  event,  why 
rather  than  my  Country  should  lose  her  fame,  I  care 
not  if  I  put  my  nativity  back  eleven  days.  Fine  fam- 
ily patronage  for  your  '  Calendar,'  if  that  old  lady  of 
prolific  memoiy  were  living,  who  lies  (or  lyes)  in  some 
church  in  London  (saints  forgive  me,  but  I  have  for- 


80  LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 

got  tvhat  cliurch),  attesting  that  enormous  legend  of  as 
many  children  as  days  in  the  year.  I  marvel  her  im- 
pudence did  not  grasp  at  a  leap-year.  Three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  dedications,  and  all  in  a  family  —  you 
might  spit  in  spirit,  on  the  oneness  of  Mecgenas's  pat- 
ronage ! 

"  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  to  the  eternal  regret 
of  his  native  Devonshire,  emigrates  to  Westphalia  — 
*  Poor  Lamb  (these  were  his  last  words)  if  he  wants 

any  knowledge^  he  may  apply  to  me,' in  ordinary 

cases  I  thanked  him,  I  have  an  '  Encyclopedia '  at 
hand,  but  on  such  an  occasion  as  going  over  to  a 
German  university,  I  could  not  refrain  from  sending 
him  the  following  propositions,  to  be  by  him  defended 
or  oppugned  (or  both)  at  Leipsic  or  Gottingen. 

THESES   QUiEDAM  THEOLOGIC^. 
I. 

" '  Whether  God  loves  a  lying  angel  better  than  a 

true  man  ? ' 

n. 

"  Whether  the  archangel  Uriel  could  knowingly 
affirm  an  untruth,  and  whether,  if  he  could^  he 
would? ' 

III. 

" '  Whether  honesty  be  an  angehc  virtue,  or  not 
rather  belonging  to  that  class  of  quahties  which  the 
schoolmen  term  "  virtutes  minus  splendidae,  et  hominis 
et  terras  nimis  participes  ? 


j>  J 


IV. 

" '  Whether    the   seraphim   ardentes   do   not  mani- 
fest their  goodness  by  the  way  of  vision  and  theory  ? 


LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY.  81 

and  whether  practice  be  not  a  sub-celestial,  and  merely 
human  virtue  ? ' 

V. 

"  'Whether  the  higher  order  of  seraphim  illuminati 
ever  sneer  f ' 

VI. 

"  '  Whether  pure  intelligences  can  love^  or  whether 
they  can  love  anything  besides  pure  intellect  ?  ' 


VII. 

"  '  Whether  the  beatific  vision  be  anything  more  or 
less  than  a  perpetual  representment  to  each  individual 
angel  of  his  own  present  attainments,  and  future  capa- 
bilities, something  in  the  manner  of  mortal  looking- 
glasses  ?  ' 

Tin. 

"  '  Whether  an  "  immortal  and  amenable  soul  "  may 
not  come  to  he  damned  at  last^  and  the  man  never  suspect 
it  beforehand  f ' 

"  Samuel  Taylor  hath  not  deigned  an  answer ;  was 
it  impertinent  of  me  to  avail  myself  of  that  offered 
source  of  knowledo-e  ? 

"Wishing  '  Madoc '  may  be  bom  into  the  world 
with  as  splendid  promise  as  the  second  birth,  or  purifi- 
cation of  the  '  Maid  of  Neufchatel,'  —  I  remain  yours 
sincerely,  «  C.  Lamb. 

"  I  hope  Edith  is  better  ;  my  kindest  remembrances 
to  her.  You  have  a  good  deal  of  trifling  to  forgive  in 
this  letter." 

The  two  next  letters  to  Southey  illustrate  strikingly 

VOL.   I.  6 


82  LETTERS  TO   SOUTHEY. 

the  restless  kindness  and  exquisite  spirit  of  allowance 
in  Lamb's  nature  ;  the  first  an  earnest  pleading  for  a 
poor  fellow  whose  distress  actually  haunted  him ;  the 
second  an  affecting  allusion  to  the  real  goodness  of  a 
wild  untoward  school-mate,  and  fine  self-reproval  —  in 
this  instance  how  unmerited  ! 


TO  MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  Dear  Southej,  —  Your  friend  John  May  has  for- 
merly made  kind  offers  to  Lloyd  of  serving  me  in  the 
India  House,  by  the  interest  of  his  friend,  Sir  Francis 
Baring.  It  is  not  likely  that  I  shall  ever  put  his  good- 
ness to  the  test  on  my  own  account,  for  my  prospects 
are  very  comfortable.  But  I  know  a  man,  a  young 
man,  whom  he  could  serve  through  the  same  channel, 
and,  I  think,  would  be  disposed  to  serve  if  he  were 
acquainted  with  his  case.  This  poor  fellow  (whom  I 
know  just  enough  of  to  vouch  for  his  strict  integrity 
and  worth),  has  lost  two  or  three  employments  from 
illness,  which  he  cannot  regain ;  he  was  once  insane, 
and,  from  the  distressful  uncertainty  of  his  livelihood, 
has  reason  to  apprehend  a  return  of  that  malady.  He 
has  been  for  some  time  dependent  on  a  woman  whose 
lodo-er  he  formerly  was,  but  who  can  ill  afford  to  main- 
tain him  ;  and  I  know  that  on  Christmas  night  last  he 
actually  walked  about  the  streets  all  night,  rather  than 
accept  of  her  bed,  which  she  offered  him,  and  offered 
herself  to  sleep  in  the  kitchen ;  and  that,  in  conse- 
quence of  that  severe  cold,  he  is  laboring  under  a  bilious 
disorder,  besides  a  depression  of  spirits,  which  incapac- 
itates him  firom  exertion  when  he  most  needs  it.     For 


LETTERS  TO   SOUTHEY.  83 

God's  sake,  Southey,  if  it  does  not  go  against  you  to 
ask  favors,  do  it  now  ;  ask  it  as  for  me  ;  but  do  not  do 
a  violence  to  your  feelings,  because  lie  does  not  know 
of  this  application,  and  will  suffer  no  disappointment. 
What  I  meant  to  say  was  this,  —  there  are  in  the  In- 
dia House  what  are  called  extra  clerks^  not  on  the  es- 
tablishment, like  me,  but  employed  in  extra  business, 
by-jobs;  these  get  about  oOZ.  a  year,  or  rather  more, 
but  never  rise  ;  a  director  can  put  in  at  any  time  a 
young  man  in  this  office,  and  it  is  by  no  means  con- 
sidered so  great  a  favor  as  making  an  established  clerk. 
He  would  think  himself  as  rich  as  an  emperor  if  he 
cotdd  get  such  a  certain  situation,  and  be  relieved 
from  those  disquietudes  which,  I  do  fear,  may  one 
day  bring  back  his  distemper. 

"  You  know  John  May  better  than  I  do,  but  I  know 
enough  to  beheve  that  he  is  a  good  man ;  he  did  make 
me  that  offer  I  have  mentioned,  but  you  will  perceive 
that  such  an  offer  cannot  authorize  me  in  applying  for 
another  person. 

"  But  I  cannot  help  writing  to  you  on  the  subject, 
for  the  young  man  is  perpetually  before  my  eyes,  and  I 
shall  feel  it  a  crime  not  to  strain  all  my  petty  interest 
to  do  him  service,  though  I  put  my  own  dehcacy  to  the 
question  by  so  doing.  I  have  made  one  other  imsuc- 
cessful  attempt  already ;  at  all  events  I  will  thank  you 
to  write,  for  I  am  tormented  with  anxiety. 

"C.  Lamb.' 


>> 


"Dear  Southey, 
"  Poor   Sam.    Le  Grice !     I  am  afraid   the  world, 
and   the   camp,   and  the   university,  have  spoilt   him 
among    them.     'Tis   certain    he   had   at    one   time   a 


84  LETTERS   TO  SOUTHEY. 

strong  capacity  of  turning  out  something  better.  I 
knew  him,  and  that  not  long  since,  when  he  had  a 
most  warm  heart.  I  am  ashamed  of  the  indifference  I 
have  sometimes  felt  towards  him.  I  think  the  devil  is 
in  one's  heart.  I  am  under  obligations  to  that  man  for 
the  warmest  friendship,  and  heartiest  sympathy,  even 
for  an  agony  of  sympathy  exprest  both  by  word  and 
deed,  and  tears  for  me,  when  I  was  in  my  greatest  dis- 
tress. But  I  have  forgot  that !  as,  I  fear,  he  has  nigh 
forgot  the  awful  scenes  which  were  before  his  eyes 
when  he  served  the  office  of  a  comforter  to  me.  No 
service  was  too  mean  or  troublesome  for  him  to  per- 
form. I  can't  think  what  but  the  devil,  '  that  old  spi- 
der,' could  have  suck'd  my  heart  so  dry  of  its  sense  of 
all  gratitude.  If  he  does  come  in  your  way,  Southey, 
fail  not  to  tell  him  that  I  retain  a  most  affectionate  re- 
membrance of  his  old  friendliness,  and  an  earnest  wish 
to  resume  our  intercourse.  In  this  I  am  serious.  I 
cannot  recommend  him  to  your  society,  because  I  am 
afraid  whether  he  be  quite  worthy  of  it.  But  I  have 
no  right  to  dismiss  him  fi'om  my  regard.  He  was  at 
one  time,  and  in  the  worst  of  times,  my  own  familiar 
friend,  and  great  comfort  to  me  then.  I  have  known 
him  to  play  at  cards  with  my  father,  meal-times  ex- 
cepted, literally  all  day  long,  in  long  days  too,  to  save 
me  from  being  teased  by  the  old  man,  when  I  was  not 
able  to  bear  it. 

"  God  bless  him  for  it,  and  God  bless  you,  Southey. 

"C.  L." 

Lamb  now  began  to  write  the  tragedy  of  "  John 
Woodvil."  His  admiration  of  the  dramatists  of  Eliz- 
abeth's age  was  yet  young,  and  had  some  of  the  in- 


LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY.  85 

discretion  of  an  early  love ;  but  there  was  nothing 
affected  in  the  antique  cast  of  his  language,  or  the  fre- 
quent roughness  of  his  verse.  His  delicate  sense  of 
beauty  had  found  a  congenial  organ  in  the  style  which 
he  tasted  with  rapture ;  and  criticism  gave  him  little 
encouragement  to  adapt  it  to  the  frigid  insipidities 
of  the  time.  "  ]My  tragedy,"  says  he  in  the  first  letter 
to  Southey,  which  alludes  to  the  play,  "  will  be  a  med- 
ley (or  I  intend  it  to  be  a  medley)  of  laughter  and 
tears,  prose  and  verse ;  and,  in  some  places,  rhyme ; 
songs,  wit,  pathos,  humor ;  and,  if  possible,  sublimity ; 
— at  least,  'tis  not  a  fault  in  my  intention  if  it  does 
not  comprehend  most  of  these  discordant  atoms  — 
Heaven  send  they  dance  not  the  dance  of  death ! " 
In  another  letter  he  there  introduces  the  delicious 
rhymed  passage  in  the  "  Forest  Scene, "  which  God- 
win, having  accidentally  seen  quoted,  took  for  a  choice 
fragment  of  an  old  dramatist,  and  went  to  Lamb  to 
assist  him  in  finding  the .  author. 


TO   MR.    SOUTHEY. 

"  I  just  send  you  a  few  rhymes  from  my  play,  the 
only  rhymes  in  it.  A  forest-liver  giving  an  account 
of  his  amusements. 

'  What  sports  have  you  in  the  forest  ? 
Not  many,  —  some  few,  —  as  thus. 
To  see  the  sun  to  bed,  and  see  him  rise, 
Like  some  hot  amorist  with  glowing  eyes. 
Bursting  the  lazy  bands  of  sleep  that  bound  him: 
With  all  his  fires  and  travelling  glories  round  him: 
Sometimes  the  moon  on  soft  night-clouds  to  rest. 
Like  beauty  nestling  in  a  young  man's  breast, 
And  all  the  winking  stars,  her  handmaids,  keep 
Admiring  silence,  while  those  lovers  sleep: 


86  LETTERS  TO   SOUTHEY. 

Sometimes  outstretch' d  in  very  idleness, 

Nought  doing,  saying  little,  thinking  less, 

To  view  the  leaves,  thin  dancers  upon  air, 

Go  eddying  round;  and  small  birds  how  they  fare, 

When  mother  Autumn  fills  their  beaks  with  corn, 

Filch'd  from  the  careless  Amalthea's  horn  ; 

And  how  the  woods  berries  and  worms  provide, 

Without  their  pains,  when  earth  hath  nought  beside 

To  answer  their  small  wants; 

To  view  the  graceful  deer  come  trooping  by, 

Then  pause,  and  gaze,  then  turn  they  know  not  why. 

Like  bashful  younkers  in  society  ; 

To  mark  the  structure  of  a  plant  or  tree; 

And  all  fair  things  of  earth,  how  fair  they  be  ! '  &c.  &c. 

*'  I  love  to  anticipate  charges  of  unoriginality  :  the 
first  line  is  almost  Shakspeare's :  — 

'  To  have  my  love  to  bed  and  to  arise. ' 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream. 

"  I  think  there  is  a  sweetness  in  the  versification  not 
unlike  some  rhymes  in  that  exquisite  play,  and  the  last 
line  but  three  is  yours : 

• '  An  eye 
That  met  the  gaze,  or  turn'd  it  knew  not  why.' 

Rosamund's  Epistle. 

"  I  shall  anticipate  all  my  play,  and  have  nothing  to 
show  you.  An  idea  for  Leviathan  —  Commentators 
on  Job  have  been  puzzled  to  find  out  a  meaning  for 
Leviathan,  —  'tis  a  whale,  say  some  ;  a  crocodile,  say 
others.  In  my  simple  conjecture,  Leviathan  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  the  Lord  Mavor  of  London  for  the 
time  being." 


He  seems  also  to  have  sent  about  this  time  the  sol- 
emnly fantastic  poem  of  the  "  Witch,"  as  the  following 
passage  relates  to  one  of  its  conceits : 


LETTERS  TO  SOUTHEY.  87 


TO  MR.  SOUTHEY. 

"  Your  recipe  for  a  Turk's  poison  is  invaluable,  and 
truly  Marlowish.  .  .  .  Lloyd  objects  to  '  shutting 
up  the  womb  of  his  piu"se '  in  my  curse,  (which,  for  a 
Christian  witch  in  a  Christian  country,  is  not  too  mild, 
I  hope,)  do  you  object  ?  I  think  there  is  a  strangeness 
in  the  idea,  as  well  as  '  shaking  the  poor  like  snakes 
from  his  door,'  which  suits  the  speaker.  Witches  illus- 
trate, as  fine  ladies  do,  from  their  own  familiar  objects, 
and  snakes  and  shutting  up  of  wombs  are  in  their  way. 
I  don't  know  that  this  last  charge  has  been  before 
brought  against  'em,  nor  either  the  sour  milk  or  the 
mandrake  babe ;  but  I  afiirm  these  be  things  a  witch 
would  do  if  she  could." 

Here  is  a  specimen  of  Lamb's  criticism  on  South- 
ey's  poetical  communications  :  — 


TO   MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  I  have  read  your  Eclogue  repeatedly,  and  can- 
not call  it  bald,  or  without  interest ;  the  cast  of  it,  and 
the  design,  are  completely  original,  and  may  set  people 
upon  thinking :  it  is  as  poetical  as  the  subject  requires, 
which  asks  no  poetry ;  but  it  is  defective  in  pathos. 
The  woman's  own  story  is  the  tamest  part  of  it  — 
I  should  like  you  to  remould  that  —  it  too  much  re- 
sembles the  young  maid's  history,  both  had  been  in 
service.  Even  the  omission  would  not  injure  the 
poem;  after  the  words  'growing  wants,'  you  might, 
not  unconnectedly,  introduce,  '  look  at  that  little  chub ' 


88  LETTERS  TO   SOUTHEY. 

down  to  'welcome  one.'  And,  decidedly,  I  would 
have  you  end  it  somehow  thus, 

'  Give  them  at  least  this  evening  a  good  meal. 

[Gives  her  money. 
Now,  fare  thee  well;  hereafter  you  have  taught  me 
To  give  sad  meaning  to  the  village-bells,'  &c. 

which  would  leave  a  stronger  impression,  (as  well  as 
more  pleasingly  recall  the  beginning  of  the  Eclogue,) 
than  the  present  commonplace  reference  to  a  better 
world,  which  the  woman  'must  have  heard  at  church.' 
I  should  like  you  too  a  good  deal  to  enlarge  the  most 
striking  part,  as  it  might  have  been,  of  the  poem  — 
'  Is  it  idleness  ? '  &c.,  that  affords  a  good  field  for 
dwelling  on  sickness,  and  inabilities,  and  old  age. 
And  you  might  also  a  good  deal  enrich  the  piece  with 
a  picture  of  a  country  wedding:  the  woman  might 
very  well,  in  a  transient  fit  of  oblivion,  dwell  upon 
the  ceremony  and  circumstances  of  her  own  nuptials 
six  years  ago,  the  snugness  of  the  bridegroom,  the 
feastings,  the  cheap  merriment,  the  welcomings,  and 
the  secret  envyings  of  the  maidens  —  then  dropping 
all  this,  recur  to  her  present  lot.  I  do  not  know  that 
I  can  suggest  anything  else,  or  that  I  have  suggested 
anything  new  or  material.  I  shall  be  very  glad  to 
see  some  more  poetry,  though,  I  fear,  your  trouble  in 
transcribing  will  be  greater  than  the  service  my  re- 
marks may  do  them. 

"  Yours  affectionately,  "  C.  Lamb. 

"I  cut  my  letter  short  because  I  am  called  off  to 
business." 

The  following,  of  the  same  character,  is  further  in- 


LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY.  89 

teresting,  as  tracing  the  origin  of  his  "  Rosamund," 
and  exhibiting  his  young  enthusiasm  for  the  old 
Enghsh   drama,   so   nobly   developed   in   his    "  Speci- 


mens :  " 


TO   MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  Dear  Southey,  —  I  thank  you  heartily  for  the 
Eclogue ;  it  pleases  me  mightily,  being  so  full  of  pic- 
ture-work and  circumstances.  I  find  no  fault  in  it, 
unless  perhaps  that  Joanna's  ruin  is  a  catastrophe  too 
trite :  and  this  is  not  the  first  or  second  time  you 
have  clothed  your  indignation  in  verse,  in  a  tale  of 
ruined  innocence.  The  old  lady,  spinning  in  the  sun, 
I  hope  would  not  disdain  to  claim  some  kindred  with 
old  Margaret.  I  could  almost  wish  you  to  vary  some 
circumstances  in  the  conclusion.  A  gentleman  se- 
ducer has  so  often  been  described  in  prose  and  verse ; 
what  if  you  had  accomplished  Joanna's  ruin  by  the 
clumsy  arts  and  rustic  gifts  of  some  country-fellow  ? 
I  am  thinking,  I  believe,  of  the  song, 

'An  old  woman  clothed  in  grey, 

Whose  daughter  was  charming  and  young, 
And  she  was  deluded  away 
By  Roger's  false  flattering  tongue.' 

"  A  Roger-Lothario  would  be  a  novel  character ;  I 
think  you  might  paint  him  very  well.  You  may 
think  this  a  very  silly  suggestion,  and  so,  indeed,  it 
is  ;  but,  in  good  truth,  nothing  else  but  the  first 
words  of  that  foolish  ballad  put  me  upon  sci'ibbling 
my  'Rosamund.'  But  I  thank  you  heartily  for  the 
poem.  Not  having  anything  of  my  own  to  send  you 
in  return  —  though,  to  tell  truth,  1  am  at  work  upon 


90  LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 

something,  which,  if  I  were  to  cut  away  and  garble, 
perhaps  I  might  send  you  an  extract  or  two  that 
might  not  displease  you ;  but  I  will  not  do  that ;  and 
whether  it  will  come  to  anything,  I  know  not,  for  I 
am  as  slow  as  a  Fleming  painter  when  I  compose 
anything  —  I  will  crave  leave  to  put  down  a  few  lines 
of  old  Christopher  Marlowe's  ;  I  take  them  from  his 
tragedy,  '  The  Jew  of  Malta.'  The  Jew  is  a  famous 
character,  quite  out  of  nature  ;  but,  when  we  consider 
the  terrible  idea  our  simple  ancestors  had  of  a  Jew, 
not  more  to  be  discommended  for  a  certain  discolor- 
ing (I  think  Addison  calls  it),  than  the  witches  and 
faiiies  of  Marlowe's  mighty  successor.  The  scene  is 
betwixt  Barabas,  the  Jew,  and  Ithamore,  a  Turkish 
captive,  exposed  to  sale  for  a  slave. 

BARABAS. 

{A  precious  rascal.) 

As  for  myself,  I  walk  abroad  a-nights, 

And  kill  sick  people  groaning  under  walls: 

Sometimes  I  go  about,  and  poison  wells; 

And  now  and  then,  to  cherish  Christian  thieves, 

I  am  content  to  lose  some  of  my  crowns, 

That  I  may,  walking  in  my  gallery, 

See  'm  go  pinioned  along  by  my  door. 

Being  young,  I  studied  physic,  and  began 

To  practise  first  upon  the  Italian: 

There  I  enriched  the  priests  with  burials. 

And  always  kept  the  sexton's  arms  in  use 

With  digging  graves,  and  ringing  dead  men's  knells; 

And,  after  that,  was  I  an  engineer. 

And  in  the  wars  'twixt  France  and  Germany, 

Under  pretence  of  serving  Charles  the  Fifth, 

Slew  friend  and  enemy  with  my  stratagems. 

Then  after  that  was  I  an  usurer, 

And  with  extorting,  cozening,  forfeiting. 

And  tricks  belonging  unto  brokery, 

I  fiU'd  the  jails  with  bankrupts  in  a  year. 

And  with  young  orphans  planted  hospitals. 

And  every  moon  made  some  or  other  mad; 


LETTERS   TO  SOUTHEY.  91 

And  DOW  and  then  one  hang  himself  for  grief, 
Pinning  upon  his  breast  a  long  great  scroll, 
How  I  with  interest  had  tormented  him. 

(Now  hear  Ithamore,  the  other  gentle  nature.) 

ITHAMOBE. 

{A  comical  dog.) 

Faith,  master,  and  I  have   spent  ray  time 

In  setting  Christian  villnges  on  fire, 

Chaining  of  eunuchs,  binding  gallev-slaves. 

One  time  1  was  an  hostler  in  an  inn, 

And  in  the  night-time  secretly  would  I  steal 

To  travellers'  chambers,  and  there  cut  their  throats. 

Once  at  Jerusalem,  where  the  pilgrims  kneel'd, 

I  strewed  powder  on  the  marble  stones, 

And  therewithal  their  knees  would  rankle  so. 

That  I  have  laugh'd  a  good  to  see  the  cripples 

Go  limping  home  to  Christendom  on  stilts. 

BARABAS. 

Why,  this  is  something  — 

"  There  is  a  mixture  of  the  ludicrous  and  the  terri- 
ble in  these  lines,  brimful  of  genius  and  antique  inven- 
tion, that  at  first  reminded  me  of  your  old  description 
of  cruelty  in  hell,  which  was  in  the  true  Hogarthian 
style.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  Marlowe  was  author  of 
that  pretty  madrigal,  '  Come  live  with  me  and  be  my 
Love,'  and  of  the  tragedy  of  '  Edward  II.,'  in  which  are 
certain  lines  unequalled  in  our  English  tongue.  Hon- 
est Walton  mentions  the  said  madrigal  under  the  de- 
nomination of  '  certain  smooth  verses  made  long  since 
by  Kit  Marlowe.' 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  put  me  on  the  scent  after  old 
Quarles.  If  I  do  not  put  up  those  eclogues,  and  that 
shortly,  say  I  am  no  true-nosed  hound.  I  have  had  a 
letter  from  Lloyd ;  the  young  metaphysician  of  Caius 
is  well,  and  is  busy  recanting  the  new  heresy,  meta- 


92  LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 

physics,  for  the  old  dogma,  Greek.     My  sister,  I  thank 
you,  is  quite  well. 

"  Yours  sincerely,         "  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  letters,  which  must  have  been  writ- 
ten after  a  short  interval,  show  a  rapid  change  of 
opinion,  very  unusual  with  Lamb  (who  stuck  to  his 
favorite  books  as  he  did  to  his  friends),  as  to  the  rel- 
ative merits  of  the  "  Emblems "  of  Wither  and  of 
Quarles : 

TO   MR.  SOUTHEY. 

"  Oct.  18th,  1798. 

"  Dear  Southey,  —  I  have  at  last  been  so  fortunate 
as  to  pick  up  Wither's  '  Emblems '  for  you,  that  '  old 
book  and  quaint,'  as  the  brief  author  of  '  Rosamund 
Gray  '  hath  it ;  it  is  in  a  most  detestable  state  of  pres- 
ervation, and  the  cuts  are  of  a  fainter  impression  than 
I  have  seen.  Some  child,  the  curse  of  antiquaries  and 
bane  of  bibliopical  rarities,  hath  been  dabbling  in  some 
of  them  with  its  paint  and  dirty  fingers ;  and,  in  par- 
ticular, hath  a  little  sullied  the  author's  own  portrai- 
ture, which  I  think  valuable,  as  the  poem  that  accom- 
panies it  is  no  common  one  ;  this  last  excepted,  the 
*  Emblems '  are  far  inferior  to  old  Quarles.  I  once 
told  you  otherwise,  but  I  had  not  then  read  old  Q. 
with  attention.  I  have  picked  up,  too,  another  copy 
of  Quarles  for  ninepence  !  !  !  O  tempora !  O  lectores ! 
so  that  if  you  have  lost  or  parted  with  your  own  copy, 
say  so,  and  I  can  fiu'nish  you,  for  you  prize  these 
things  more  than  I  do.  You  will  be  amused,  I  think, 
with  honest  Wither's  '  Supersedeas  to  all  them  whose 
custom  it  is,  without  any  deserving,  to  importune  au- 


LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY.  93 

thors  to  give  unto  them  their  books.'  I  am  sorry  'tis 
imperfect,  as  the  lottery  board  annexed  to  it  also  is. 
Methinks  you  might  modernize  and  elegantize  this 
Supersedeas,  and  place  it  in  front  of  your  '  Joan  of 
Arc,'  as  a  gentle  hint  to  Messrs.  Parke,  &c.  One  of 
the  happiest  emblems,  and  comicalest  cuts,  is  the  owl 
and  little  chirpers,  page  63. 

"  Wishing  you  all  amusement,  which  your  true  em- 
blem-fancier can  scarce  fail  to  find  in  even  bad  em- 
blems, I  remain  your  caterer  to  command, 

"  C.  Lamb. 

"  Love  and  respects  to  Edith.  I  hope  she  is  well. 
How  does  your  '  Calendar  '  prosper  ?  " 


TO   MR.  SOUTHEY. 

"  Nov.  8th,  1798. 

"  I  perfectly  accord  with  your  opinion  of  old 
Wither;  Quarles  is  a  wittier  writer,  but  Wither  lays 
more  hold  of  the  heart.  Quarles  thinks  of  his  audi- 
ence when  he  lectures ;  Wither  soliloquizes  in  com- 
pany from  a  frill  heart.  What  wretched  stuff  are  the 
'  Divine  Fancies '  of  Quarles  !  Religion  appears  to 
him  no  longer  valuable  than  it  furnishes  matter  for 
quibbles  and  riddles ;  he  turns  God's  grace  into  wan- 
tonness. Wither  is  like  an  old  friend,  whose  warm- 
heartedness and  estimable  qualities  make  us  wish  he 
possessed  more  genius,  but  at  the  same  time  make  us 
willing  to  dispense  with  that  want.  I  always  love  W., 
and  sometimes  admire  Q.  Still  that  portrait  poem  is 
a  fine  one ;  and  the  extract  from  '  Shepherds'  Hunting ' 
places  him  in  a  starry  height  far  above  Quarles.     If 


94  LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 

you  wrote  that  review  in  '  Crit.  Rev.,'  I  am  sorry  you 
are  so  sparing  of  praise  to  the  '  Ancient  Marinere  ; '  — 
so  far  from  calhng  it  as  you  do,  with  some  wit,  but 
more  severity, '  A  Dutch  Attempt,'  &c.,  I  call  it  a  right 
English  attempt,  and  a  successful  one,  to  dethrone 
German  sublimity.  You  have  selected  a  passage  fer- 
tile in  unmeaning  miracles,  but  have  passed  by  fifty 
passages  as  miraculous  as  the  miracles  they  celebrate. 
I  never  so  deeply  felt  the  pathetic  as  in  that  part, 

'  A  spring  of  love  gush'd  from  my  heart, 
And  I  bless'd  them  unaware  — ' 

It  stung  me  into  high  pleasure  through  sufferings. 
Lloyd  does  not  like  it;  his  head  is  too  metaphysical, 
and  your  taste  too  correct ;  at  least  I  must  allege  some- 
thing against  you  both,  to  excuse  my  own  dotage  — 

'  So  lonely  'twas,  that  God  himself 
Scarce  seemed  there  to  be!  '  — &c.,  &c. 

But  you  allow  some  elaborate  beauties  —  you  should 
have  extracted  'em.  The  '  Ancient  Marinere  '  plays 
more  tricks  with  the  mind  than  that  last  poem,  which 
is  yet  one  of  the  finest  written.  But  I  am  getting  too 
dogmatical ;  and  before  I  degenerate  into  abuse,  I  will 
conclude  with  assuring  you  that  I  am 

"  Sincerely  yours,  "  C.  Lamb. 

"  I  am  going  to  meet  Lloyd  at  Ware  on  Saturday, 
to  return  on  Sunday.  Have  you  any  commands  or 
commendations  to  the  metaphysician  ?  I  shall  be  very 
happy  if  you  will  dine  or  spend  any  time  with  me  in 
your  way  through  the  great  ugly  city ;  but  I  know  you 
have  other  ties  upon  you  in  these  parts. 

"  Love  and  respects  to  Edith,  and  friendly  remem- 
brances to  Cottle." 


LETTERS  TO   SOUTHEY.  95 

In  this  year,  Mr.  Cottle  proposed  to  publish  an 
annual  volume  of  fugitive  poetry  by  various  hands, 
under  the  title  of  the  "Annual  Anthology ;  "  to  which 
Coleridge  and  Southey  were  principal  contributors,  the 
first  volume  of  which  was  published  in  the  following 
year.  To  this  little  work  Lamb  contributed  a  short 
religious  effusion  in  blank  verse,  entitled  "  Living 
without  God  in  the  World."  The  following  letter  to 
Southey  refers  to  this  poem  by  its  first  words,  "  Mys- 
tery of  God,"  and  recurs  to  the  rejected  sonnet  to  his 
sister ;  and  alludes  to  an  intention,  afterwards  changed, 
of  entitling  the  proposed  collection  "  Gleanings." 


TO  MR.  SOUTHEY. 

"  Nov.  28th,  1798. 

"  I  can  have  no  objection  to  your  printing  '  Mystery 
of  God'  with  my  name,  and  all  due  acknowledgments 
for  the  honor  and  favor  of  the  communication  ;  indeed, 
'tis  a  poem  that  can  dishonor  no  name.     Now,  that  is 

in  the  true  strain  of  modern  modesto-vanitas 

But  for  the  sonnet,  I  heartily  wish  it,  as  I  thought  it 
was,  dead  and  forgotten.  If  the  exact  circumstances 
under  which  I  wrote  could  be  known  or  told,  it  would 
be  an  interesting  sonnet ;  but,  to  an  indifferent  and 
stranger  reader,  it  must  appear  a  very  bald  thing, 
certainly  inadmissible  in  a  compilation.  I  wish  you 
could  affix  a  different  name  to  the  volume ;  there  is 
a  contemptible  book,  a  wretched  assortment  of  vapid 
feelings,  entitled  PraWs  Gleanings^  which  hath  damned 
and  impropriated  the  title  forever.  Pray  think  of  some 
other.  The  gentleman  is  better  known  (better  had  he 
remained  unknown)  by  an  '  Ode  to  Benevolence,'  writ^ 


96  ATTACKS   OF   THE   ANTI-JACOBIN. 

ten  and  spoken  for  and  at  the  annual  dinner  of  the 
Humane  Society,  who  walk  in  procession  once  a  year, 
with  all  the  objects  of  their  charity  before  them,  to 
return  God  thanks  for  giving  them  such  benevolent 
hearts." 


At  this  time  Lamb's  most  intimate  associates  were 
Lloyd  and  Jem  White,  the  author  of  the  "  Falstaff  Let- 
ters." When  Lloyd  was  in  town,  he  and  White  lodged 
in  the  same  house,  and  were  fast  friends,  though  no 
two  men  could  be  more  unlike,  Lloyd  having  no  droll- 
ery in  his  nature,  and  White  nothing  else.  "  You  will 
easily  understand,"  observes  Mr.  Southey,  in  a  letter 
with  which  he  favored  the  publisher,  "  how  Lamb 
could  sympathize  with  both." 

The  literary  association    of    Lamb  with   Coleridge 
and  Southey  drew  down  upon  him  the  hostility  of  the 
young  scorners  of  the  "  Anti-Jacobin,"  who  luxuriat- 
ing in  boyish  pride  and  aristocratic  patronage,  tossed 
the  arrows  of  their  wit  against  all  charged  with  inno- 
vation,  whether  in  politics  or  poetry,  and  cared  little 
whom  they  wounded.     No  one  could  be  more  inno- 
cent  than    Lamb  of  political   heresy ;    no   one   more 
strongly  opposed  to  new  theories  in  morality,  which 
he   always   regarded  with   disgust ;    and   yet   he  not 
only  shared  in  the  injustice  which  accused  his  friends 
of  the  last,  but  was  confounded  in  the  charge  of  the 
first,  —  his  only  crime  being  that  he  had  published  a 
few  poems  deeply  colored  with  religious  enthusiasm, 
in  conjunction  with   two  other  men  of  genius,   who 
were   dazzled   by   the   glowing    phantoms   which   the 
French  Revolution  had  raised.     The  very  first  num- 


ATTACKS   OF  THE  ANTI-JACOBIN.  97 

ber  of  the  "  Anti- Jacobin  Magazine  and  Review"  was 
adorned  by  a  caricature  of  Gilray's,  in  which  Cole- 
ridge and  Southey  were  introduced  with  asses'  heads, 
and  Lloyd  and  Lamb  as  toad  and  frog.  In  the  num- 
ber for  July  appeared  the  well-known  poem  of  the 
"  New  Morality,"  in  which  all  the  prominent  objects 
of  the  hatred  of  these  champions  of  religion  and  or- 
der were  introduced  as  offering  homage  to  Lepaux, 
a  French  charlatan,  —  of  whose  existence  Lamb  had 
never  even  heard. 

"  Couriers  and  Stars,  sedition's  evening  host, 
Thou  Morning  Chronicle,  and  Morning  Post, 
Whether  ye  make  the  '  Rights  of  Man '  your  theme, 
Your  country  libel,  and  your  God  blaspheme, 
Or  dirt  on  private  worth  and  virtue  throw, 
Still  blasphemous  or  blackguard,  praise  Lepaux. 
And  ye  five  other  wandering  bards,  that  move 
In  sweet  accord  of  harmony  and  love, 

C dge  and  S — th — y,  L — d,  and  L — h  and  Co., 

Tune  all  your  mystic  harps  to  praise  Lepaux!  " 

Not  content  with  thus  confounding  persons  of  the 
most  opposite  opinions  and  the  most  various  charac- 
ters in  one  common  libel,  the  party  returned  to  the 
charge  in  the  number  for  September,  and  thus  de- 
nounced the  young  poets,  in  a  parody  on  the  "  Ode 
to  the  Passions,"  under  the  title  of  "The  Anar- 
chists." 

"  Next  H— Ic— ft  vow'd  in  doleful  tone, 
No  more  to  fire  a  thankless  age; 
Oblivion  mark'd  his  labors  for  her  own, 
Neglected  from  the  press,  and  damn'd  upon  the  stage. 

See!   faithful  to  their  mighty  dam, 

C dge,  S— th— y,  L— d,  and  L— b. 

In  splay-foot  madrigals  of  love, 
Soft  moaning  like  the  widow'd  dove, 
VOL.  I.  7 


98  ATTACKS    OF    THE    ANTI-JACOBIN. 

Pour,  side-by-side,  their  sympatlietic  notes; 
Of  equal  riglits,  and  civic  feasts, 
And  tyrant  kings,  and  itnavish  priests. 
Swift  through  the  land  the  tuneful  mischief  floats. 

And  now  to  softer  strains  they  struck  the  lyre, 
They  sung  the  beetle  or  the  mole, 
The  dying  kid,  or  ass's  foal, 

By  cruel  man  permitted  to  expire." 


These  efflisions  have  the  palliation  which  the  excess 
of  sportive  wit,  impelled  by  youthful  spirits  and  fos- 
tered by  the  applause  of  the  great,  brings  with  it ; 
but  it  will  be  difficult  to  palliate  the  coarse  malignity 
of  a  passage  in  the  prose  department  of  the  same 
work,  in  which  the  writer  added  to  a  statement  that 
Mr.  Coleridge  was  dishonored  at  Cambridge  for  preach- 
ing Deism :  "  Since  then  he  has  left  his  native  country, 
commenced  citizen  of  the  world,  left  his  poor  chil- 
dren fatherless,  and  his  wife  destitute.  Ex  his  disce, 
his  friends  Lamb  and  Sou  they."  It  was  surely  rather 
too  much  even  for  partisans,  when  denouncing  their 
political  opponents  as  men  who  "  dirt  on  private  worth 
and  virtue  threw,"  thus  to  slander  two  young  men 
of  the  most  exemplary  character  —  one,  of  an  almost 
puritanical  exactness  of  demeanor  and  conduct  —  and 
the  other,  persevering  in  a  life  of  noble  self-sacrifice, 
checkered  only  by  the  frailties  of  a  sweet  nature, 
which  endeared  him  even  to  those  who  were  not  ad- 
mitted to  the  intimacy  necessary  to  appreciate  the 
touching  example  of  his  severer  virtues  ! 

If  Lamb's  acquaintance  with  Coleridge  and  Southey 
procured  for  him  the  scorn  of  the  more  virulent  of 
the  Anti-Jacobin  party,  he  showed  by  his  intimacy 
with  another  distinguished  object  of  their  animosity. 


ATTACKS    OF   THE   ANTI-JACOBIN.  99 

that  he  was  not  solicitous  to  avert  it.  He  was  intro- 
duced by  Mr.  Coleridge  to  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able persons  of  that  stirring  time  —  the  author  of 
"  Caleb  Williams,"  and  of  the  "  Political  Justice." 
The  first  meeting  between  Lamb  and  Godwin  did  not 
wear  a  promising  aspect.  Lamb  grew  warm  as  the 
con's'iviality  of  the  evening  advanced,  and  indulged  in 
some  freaks  of  humor  which  had  not  been  dreamed 
of  in  Godwin's  philosophy ;  and  the  philosopher,  for- 
getting the  equanimity  with  which  he  usually  looked 
on  the  vicissitudes  of  the  world  or  the  whist-table, 
broke  into  an  allusion  to  Gilray's  caricature,  and 
asked,  "  Pray,  Mr.  Lamb,  are  you  toad  or  frog  ?  " 
Coleridge  was  apprehensive  of  a  rupture  ;  but  calling 
the  next  morning  on  Lamb,  he  found  Godwin  seated 
at  breakfast  with  him  ;  and  an  interchange  of  civil- 
ities and  card-parties  was  established,  which  lasted 
through  the  life  of  Lamb,  whom  Godwin  only  survived 
a  few  months.  Indifferent  altogether  to  the  politics  of 
the  age,  Lamb  could  not  help  being  struck  with  pro- 
ductions of  its  new-born  energies,  so  remarkable  as  the 
works  and  the  character  of  Godwin.  He  seemed  to 
realize  in  himself  what  Wordsworth  long  afterwards 
described,  "  the  central  calm  at  the  heart  of  all  agita- 
tion." Through  the  medium  of  his  mind  the  stormy 
convulsions  of  society  were  seen  "  silent  as  in  a  pic- 
ture." Paradoxes  the  most  daring  wore  the  air  of 
deliberate  wisdom  as  he  pronounced  them.  He  foretold 
the  friture  happiness  of  mankind,  not  with  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  poet,  but  with  the  grave  and  passionless 
voice  of  the  oracle.  There  was  nothing  better  calcu- 
lated at  once  to  feed  and  to  make  steady  the  enthusi- 
asm of  youthful  patriots  than  the  high  speculations,  in 


100  LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 

which  he  taught  them  to  engage  on  the  nature  of  social 
evils  and  the  great  destiny  of  his  species.  No  one 
would  have  suspected  the  author  of  those  wild  theoi-ies, 
which  startled  the  wise  and  shocked  the  prudent,  in  the 
calm,  gentlemanly  person  who  rarely  said  anything 
above  the  most  gentle  commonplace,  and  took  interest 
in  little  beyond  the  whist-table.  His  peculiar  opinions 
were  entirely  subservient  to  his  love  of  letters.  He 
thought  any  man  who  had  written  a  book  had  attained 
a  superiority  over  his  fellows  which  placed  him  in 
another  class,  and  could  scarcely  understand  other 
distinctions.  Of  all  his  works  Lamb  liked  his  "  Essay 
on  Sepulchres  "  the  best  —  a  short  development  of  a 
scheme  for  preserving  in  one  place  the  memory  of  all 
great  writers  deceased,  and  assigning  to  each  his  proper 
station,  —  quite  chimerical  in  itself,  but  accompanied 
with  solemn  and  touching  musings  on  life  and  death, 
and  fame,  embodied  in  a  style  of  singular  refinement 
and  beauty. 


CHAPTER  V. 

[1799,  1800.] 

LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY,   COLERIDGE,    MANNING,   AND 
WORDSWORTH. 

The  year  1799  found  Lamb  engaged  during  his 
leisure  hours  in  completing  his  tragedy  of  "  John  Wood- 
vil,"  which  seems  to  have  been  finished  about  Christmas, 
and  transmitted  to  Mr.  Kemble.  Like  all  young  au- 
thors, who  are  fascinated  by  the  splendor  of  theatrical 


LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY.  101 

representation,  lie  longed  to  see  liis  conceptions  embod- 
ied on  the  stage,  and  to  receive  his  immediate  reward 
in  the  sympathy  of  a  crowd  of  excited  spectators.  The 
hope  was  vain  ;  —  but  it  cheered  him  in  many  a  lonely 
hour,  and  inspired  him  to  write  when  exhausted  with 
the  business  of  the  day,  and  when  the  less  powerful 
stimulus  of  the  press  would  have  been  insufficient  to 
rouse  him.  In  the  mean  time  he  continued  to  corre- 
spond with  Mr.  Southey,  to  send  him  portions  of  his 
play,  and  to  reciprocate  criticisms  with  him.  The 
following  three  letters,  addressed  to  Mr.  Southey  in 
the  spring  of  this  year,  require  no  commentary. 


TO  MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"Jan.  21st,  1799. 

"  I  am  to  blame  for  not  writing  to  you  before  on  my 
own  account;  but  I  know  you  can  dispense  with  the 
expressions  of  gratitude  or  I  should  have  thanked  you 
before  for  all  May's  kindness.*  He  has  hberally  sup- 
pHed  the  person  I  spoke  to  you  of  with  money,  and  had 
procured  him  a  situation  just  after  himself  had  light- 
ed upon  a  similar  one,  and  engaged  too  far  to  recede. 
But  May's  kindness  was  the  same,  and  my  thanks  to 
you  and  him  are  the  same.  May  went  about  on  this 
business  as  if  it  had  been  his  own.  But  you  knew 
John  May  before  this,  so  I  will  be  silent. 

"  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  hear  from  you  when  conven- 
ient. I  do  not  know  how  your  '  Calendar '  and  other 
affairs  thrive ;  but  above  all,  I  have  not  heard  a  great 
while  of  your  '  Madoc '  —  the  ojoms  magnum.  I  would 
w^illingly  send  you  something  to  give  a  value  to  this 

*  See  ante,  p.  82. 


102  LETTERS   TO  SOUTHEY. 

letter ;  but  I  have  only  one  sHglit  passage  to  send  you, 
scarce  worth  the  sending;,  which  I  want  to  edfje  in 
somewhere  into  my  play,  which,  by  the  way,  hath  not 
received  the  addition  of  ten  lines,  besides,  since  I  saw 
you.  A  father,  old  Walter  Woodvil,  (the  witch's 
protege)  relates  this  of  his  son  John,  who  'fought  in 
adverse  armies,'  being  a  royalist,  and  his  father  a  par- 
liamentary man. 

'  I  saw  him  in  the  day  of  Worcester  fight, 
Whither  lie  came  at  twice  seven  years, 
Under  the  discipline  of  the  Lord  Falkland, 
(His  uncle  by  the  mother's  side, 
Who  gave  his  j'outhful  politics  a  bent 
Qulte/rom  the  principles  of  his  father's  house;) 
There  did  I  see  this  valiant  Lamb  of  Mars, 
This  sprig  of  honor,  this  unbeiirded  John. 
This  veteran  in  green  years,  this  sprout,  this  Woodvil, 
(With  dreadless  ease  guiding  a  fire-hot  steed. 
Which  seem'd  to  scorn  the  manage  of  a  boy,) 
Prick  forth  with  such  a  mirth  into  the  field, 
To  mingle  rivalship  and  acts  of  war 
Even  with  the  sinew}'  masters  of  the  art, — 
You  would  have  thought  the  work  of  blood  had  been 
A  play-game  merely,  and  the  rabid  Mars 
Had  put  his  harmful  hostile  nature  off. 
To  instruct  raw  youth  in  images  of  war. 
And  practice  of  the  unedged  players'  foils. 
The  rough  fanatic  and  blood-practised  soldiery 
Seeing  such  hope  and  virtue  in  the  boy, 
Disclosed  their  ranks  to  let  him  pass  unhurt, 
Checking  their  swords'  uncivil  injuries, 
As  loth  to  mar  that  curious  workmanship 
Of  Valor's  beauty  pourtray'd  in  his  face.' 

"  Lloyd  objects  to  '  pourtrayed  in  his  face,'  do  you  ? 
I  like  the  line. 

"  I  shall  clap  this  in  somewhere.  I  think  there  is  a 
spirit  through  the  lines ;  perhaps  the  7th,  8th,  and  9th 
owe  their  origin  to  Shakspeare,  though  no  image  is 
borrowed. 


LETTERS    TO    SOUTHEY.  103 

"  He  says  in  Henry  the  Fourth  — 

'  This  infant  Hotspur, 
Mars  in  swathing  clothes.' 

But  pray  did  Lord  Falkland  die  before  Worcester 
fight  ?  In  that  case  I  must  make  bold  to  unclify 
some  other  nobleman. 

"  Kind  love  and  respects  to  Edith. 

"  C.  Lamb." 

TO  MR.    SOUTHEY. 

"  March  15th,  1799. 

"Dear  Southey,  —  I  have  received  your  little  vol- 
ume, for  which  I  thank  you,  though  I  do  not  entirely 
approve  of  this  sort  of  intercourse,  where  the  presents 
are  all  on  one  side.  I  have  read  the  last  Ecloo-ue 
again  with  great  pleasure.  It  hath  gained  considerably 
by  abridgment,  and  now  I  think  it  wants  nothing  but 
enlargement.  You  will  call  this  one  of  tyrant  Pro- 
crustes' criticisms,  to  cut  and  pull  so  to  his  own  stand- 
ard ;  but  the  old  lady  is  so  great  a  favorite  with  me,  I 
want  to  hear  more  of  her ;  and  of  '  Joanna '  you  have 
given  us  still  less.  But  the  picture  of  the  rustics  lean- 
ing over  the  bridge,  and  the  old  lady  travelling  abroad 
on  summer  evening  to  see  her  garden  watered,  are 
images  so  new  and  true,  that  I  decidedly  prefer  this 
'  Ruin'd  Cottage  '  to  any  poem  in  the  book.  Indeed  I 
think  it  the  only  one  that  will  bear  comparison  with 
your  '  Hymn  to  the  Penates,'  in  a  former  volume. 

"  I  compare  dissimilar  things,  as  one  would  a  rose 
and  a  star,  for  the  pleasure  they  give  us,  or  as  a  child 
soon  learns  to  choose  between  a  cake  and  a  rattle  ;  for 
dissimilars    have    mostly  some    points    of  comparison. 


104  LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 

The  next  best  poem,  I  think,  is  the  first  Eclogue  ;  'tis 
very  complete,  and  abounding  in  little  pictures  and 
realities.  The  remainder  Eclogues,  excepting  only 
the  '  Funeral,'  I  do  not  greatly  admire.  I  miss  one, 
which  had  at  least  as  good  a  title  to  publication  as 
the  'Witch,'  or  the  'Sailor's  Mother.'  You  call'd 
it  the  'Last  of  the  Family.'  The  'Old  Woman  of 
Berkeley '  comes  next ;  in  some  humors  I  would  give 
it  the  preference  above  any.  But  who  the  devil  is 
Matthew  of  Westminster  ?  You  are  as  familiar  with 
these  antiquated  monastics,  as  Swedenborgj,  or,  as  his 
followers  affect  to  call  him,  the  Baron,  with  his  invis- 
ibles. But  you  have  raised  a  very  comic  effect  out 
of  the  true  narrative  of  Matthew  of  Westminster. 
'Tis  surprising  with  how  little  addition  you  have  been 
able  to  convert,  with  so  little  alteration,  his  incidents, 
meant  for  terror,  into  circumstances  and  food  for  the 
spleen.  The  parody  is  not  so  successful ;  it  has  one 
famous  line,  indeed,  which  conveys  the  finest  death-bed 
image  I  ever  met  with  : 

'  The  doctor  whisper'd  the  nurse,  and  the  surgeon  knew  what 
he  said.' 

But  the  offering  the  bride  three  times  bears  not  the 
slightest  analogy  or  proportion  to  the  fiendish  noises 
three  times  heard  !  In  '  Jasper,'  the  circumstance  of 
the  great  light  is  very  affecting.  But  I  had  heard 
you  mention  it  before.  The  '  Rose  '  is  the  only  insipid 
piece  in  the  volume  ;  it  hath  neither  thorns  nor  sweet- 
ness ;  and,  besides,  sets  all  chronology  and  probability 
at  defiance. 

"  '  Cousin  Margaret,'  you  know,    I  like.     The  al- 
lusions  to   the   '  Pilgrim's    Progress '  are   particularly 


LETTERS   TO    SOUTHEY.  105 

happy,  and  harmonize  tacitly  and  delicately  with  old 
cousins  and  aunts.  To  familiar  faces  we  do  associate 
familiar  scenes,  and  accustomed  objects  ;  but  what  hath 
Apollidon  and  his  sea-nymphs  to  do  in  these  affairs  ? 
Apollyon  I  could  have  borne,  though  he  stands  for 
the  devil,  but  who  is  Apollidon  ?  I  think  you  are 
too  apt  to  conclude  faintly,  with  some  cold  moral,  as 
in  the  end  of  the  poem  called  '  The  Victory  '  — 

'  Be  thou  her  comforter,  who  art  the  widow's  friend  ; ' 

a  single  commonplace  line  of  comfort,  which  bears  no 
proportion  in  weight  or  number  to  the  many  lines 
which  describe  suffering.  This  is  to  convert  relio-ion 
into  mediocre  feelings,  which  should  burn,  and  glow, 
and  tremble.  A  moral  should  be  wrought  into  the 
body  and  soul,  the  matter  and  tendency  of  a  poem, 
not  tagged  to  the  end,  like  a  '  God  send  the  good  ship 
into  harbor,'  at  the  conclusion  of  our  bills  of  ladino-. 
The  finishing  of  the  '  Sailor  '  is  also  imperfect.  Any 
dissenting  minister  may  say  and  do  as  much. 

"  These  remarks,  I  know,  are  crude  and  unwrought, 
but  I  do  not  lay  claim  to  much  accurate  thinking. 
I  never  judge  system-wise  of  things,  but  fasten  upon 
particulars.  After  all,  there  is  a  great  deal  in  the  book 
that  I  must,  for  time,  leave  unmentioned,  to  deserve 
my  thanks  for  its  own  sake,  as  well  as  for  the  friendly 
remembrances  imphed  in  the  gift.  I  again  return  you 
my  thanks. 

"  Pray  present  my  love  to  Edith. 

"  C.  L." 


106  LETTERS  TO  SOUTHEY. 


TO  MR.  SOUTHEY. 

"  March  20th,  1799. 

"  I  am  hugely  pleased  with  your  '  Spider,'  '  your 
old  freemason,'  as  you  call  him.  The  three  first  stan- 
zas are  delicious ;  they  seem  to  me  a  compound  of 
Burns  and  Old  Quarles,  those  kind  of  home-strokes, 
where  more  is  felt  than  strikes  the  ear:  a  terseness, 
a  jocular  pathos,  which  makes  one  feel  in  laughter. 
The  measure,  too,  is  novel  and  pleasing.  I  could  al- 
most wonder  Rob.  Burns,  in  his  lifetime  never  stum- 
bled upon  it.  The  fourth  stanza  is  less  striking,  as 
beino;  less  orio-inal.  The  fifth  falls  off.  It  has  no 
felicity  of  phrase,  no  old-fashioned  phrase  or  feeling. 

'  Young  hopes  and  love's  delightful  dreams,' 

savor  neither  of  Burns  nor  Quarles ;  they  seem  more 
like  shreds  of  many  a  modern  sentimental  sonnet. 
The  last  stanza  hath  nothing  striking  in  it,  if  I  except 
the  two  concluding  lines,  which  are  Burns  all  over. 
I  wish  if  you  concur  with  me,  these  things  could  be 
looked  to.  I  am  sure  this  is  a  kind  of  writing,  which 
comes  tenfold  better  recommended  to  the  heart,  comes 
there  more  like  a  neighbor  or  familiar,  than  thousands 
of  Hamnels  and  Zillahs  and  Madelons.  I  beg  you 
will  send  me  the  '  Holly-tree,'  if  it  at  all  resemble 
this,  for  it  must  please  me.  I  have  never  seen  it.  I 
love  this  sort  of  poems,  that  open  a  new  intercourse 
with  the  most  despised  of  the  animal  and  insect  race. 
I  think  this  vein  may  be  further  opened.  Peter  Pin- 
dar hath  very  prettily  apostrophized  a  fly  ;  Burns  hath 
his  mouse  and  his  louse ;  Coleridge  less  successfully 
hath  made  overtures  of  intimacy  to  a  jackass,  therein 


LETTERS    TO    SOUTHEY.  107 

only  following  at  unresembling  distance,  Sterne  and 
greater  Cervantes.  Besides  these,  I  know  of  no  other 
examples  of  breaking  down  the  partition  between  us 
and  our  'poor  earthborn  companions.'  It  is  some- 
times revolting  to  be  put  in  a  track  of  feeling  by  other 
people,  not  one's  own  immediate  thoughts,  else  I  would 
persuade  you,  if  I  could  (I  am  in  earnest),  to  com- 
mence a  series  of  these  animal  poems,  which  might 
have  a  tendency  to  rescue  some  poor  creatures  from 
the  antipathy  of  mankind.  Some  thoughts  come  across 
me ;  —  for  instance  —  to  a  rat,  to  a  toad,  to  a  cock- 
chafer, to  a  mole  —  people  bake  moles  alive  by  a  slow 
oven-fire  to  cure  consumption  —  rats  are,  indeed,  the 
most  despised  and  contemptible  parts  of  God's  earth. 
I  killed  a  rat  the  other  day  by  punching  him  to  pieces, 
and  feel  a  weight  of  blood  upon  me  to  this  hour. 
Toads  you  know  are  made  to  fly,  and  tumble  down 
and  crush  all  to  pieces.  Cockchafers  are  old  sport : 
then  again  to  a  worm,  with  an  apostrophe  to  anglers, 
those  patient  tyrants,  meek  inflicters  of  pangs  Intolera- 
ble, cool  devils  ;  to  an  owl ;  to  all  snakes,  with  an 
apology  for  their  poison  ;  to  a  cat  in  boots  or  bladders. 
Your  own  fancy,  if  it  takes  a  fancy  to  these  hints,  will 
suggest  many  more.  A  series  of  such  poems,  suppose 
them  accompanied  with  plates  descriptive  of  animal 
torments,  cooks  roasting  lobsters,  fishmongers  crimping 
skates,  &c.,  &c.,  would  take  excessively.  I  will  will- 
ingly enter  into  a  partnership  in  the  plan  with  you :  I 
think  my  heart  and  soul  would  go  with  it  too  —  at 
least,  give  it  a  thought.  My  plan  is  but  this  minute 
come  into  my  head  ;  but  it  strikes  me  instantaneously 
as  something  new,  good,  and  useful,  full  of  pleasure, 
and  full  of  moral.     If  old  Quarles  and  Wither  could 


,■08  LETTERS   TO   SOUTHEY. 

3ive    again,    we    would    invite    them    into    our    firm. 
Burns  hath  done  his  part." 

In  the  summer  Lamb  revisited  the  scenes  in  Hert- 
fordshire, where,  in  his  grandmother's  time,  he  had 
spent  so  many  happy  hohdays.  In  the  following  let- 
ter, he  just  hints  at  feelings  which,  many  years  after, 
he  so  beautifully  developed  in  those  essays  of  "  Elia," 
—  "  Blakesmoor,"  and  "  Mackery  End." 


TO   MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  Oct.  31st,  1799. 

"  Dear  Southey,  —  I  have  but  just  got  your  letter, 
being  returned  from  Herts,  where  I  have  passed  a  few 
red-letter  days  with  much  pleasure.  I  would  describe 
the  county  to  you,  as  you  have  done  by  Devonshire, 
but  alas  !  I  am  a  poor  pen  at  that  same.  I  could  tell 
you  of  an  old  house  with  a  tapestry  bedroom,  the 
'  Judgment  of  Solomon '  composing  one  panel,  and 
'  Actgeon  spying  Diana  naked  '  the  other.  I  could  teU 
of  an  old  marble  hall,  with  Hogarth's  prints,  and  the 
Roman  Caesars  in  marble  hung  round.  I  could  tell  of 
a  wilderness^  and  of  a  village  church,  and  where  the 
bones  of  my  honored  grandam  lie ;  but  there  are  feel- 
ings which  refuse  to  be  translated,  sulky  aborigines, 
which  will  not  be  naturalized  in  another  soil.  Of  this 
nature  are  old  family  faces,  and  scenes  of  infancy. 

"  I  have  given  your  address,  and  the  books  you 
want,  to  the  Arch's ;  they  will  send  them  as  soon 
as  they  can  get  them,  but  they  do  not  seem  quite 
familiar  to  their  names.  I  shall  have  nothing  to  com- 
municate, I  fear,  to  the  '  Anthology.'     You  shall  have 


LETTERS  TO   MANNING.  109 

some  fragments  of  mj  play,  if  you  desire  tliem,  but  I 
think  I  had  rather  print  it  whole.  Have  you  seen  it, 
or  shall  I  lend  you  a  copy  ?  I  want  your  opinion  of  it. 
"  I  must  get  to  business,  so  farewell ;  my  kind  re- 
membrances to  Edith.  "  C.  L." 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year.  Lamb's  choice  list  of 
friends  received  a  most  important  addition  in  Mr. 
Thomas  Manning,  then  a  mathematical  tutor  at  Cam- 
bridge :  of  whom  he  became  a  frequent  correspondent, 
and  to  whom  he  remained  strongly  attached  through 
life.  Lloyd  had  become  a  graduate  of  the  university, 
and  to  his  introduction  Lamb  was  indebted  for  Man- 
ning's friendship.  The  following  letters  will  show 
how  earnestly,  yet  how  modestly.  Lamb  sought  it. 


TO   SIR.   MANNING. 

"Dec.  1799. 

"  Dear  Manning,  —  The  particular  kindness,  even 
up  to  a  degree  of  attachment,  which  I  have  experi- 
enced from  you,  seems  to  claim  some  distinct  acknowl- 
edgment on  my  part.  I  could  not  content  myself  with 
a  bare  remembrance  to  you,  conveyed  in  some  letter  to 
Lloyd. 

"  Will  it  be  agreeable  to  you,  if  I  occasionally  recruit 
your  memory  of  me,  which  must  else  soon  fade,  if  you 
consider  the  brief  intercourse  we  have  had.  I  am  not 
likely  to  prove  a  troublesome  correspondent.  My 
scribbling  days  are  past.  I  shall  have  no  sentiments  to 
communicate,  but  as  they  spring  up  from  some  living 
and  worthy  occasion. 

"  I  look  forward  with  great  pleasure  to  the  perform- 


110  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

ance  of  your  promise,  that  we  should  meet  in  London 
early  in  the  ensuing  year.  The  century  must  needs 
commence  auspiciously  for  me,  that  brings  with  it 
Manning's  friendship,  as  an  earnest  of  its  after  gifts. 

"  I  should  have  written  before,  but  for  a  troublesome 
inflammation  in  one  of  my  eyes,  brought  on  by  night 
travelling  with  the  coach  windows  sometimes  up. 

"  What  more  I  have  to  say  shall  be  reserved  for  a 
letter  to  Lloyd.  I  must  not  prove  tedious  to  you  in 
my  first  outset,  lest  I  should  affright  you  by  my  ill- 
judged   loquacity. 

*'  1  am,  yours  most  sincerely, 

"C.  Lamb." 

TO   MR.  MANNING. 

"  Dec.  28th,  1799. 

"  Dear  Manning,  —  Having  suspended  my  corre- 
spondence a  decent  interval,  as  knowing  that  even 
good  things  may  be  taken  to  satiety,  a  wish  cannot 
but  recur  to  learn  whether  you  be  still  well  and 
happy.  Do  all  things  continue  in  the  state  I  left  them 
in  Cambrido;e  ? 

"  Do  your  night  parties  still  flourish  ?  and  do  you 
continue  to  bewilder  your  company,  with  your  thou- 
sand faces,  running  down  through  all  the  keys  of  idiot- 
ism  (like  Lloyd  over  his  perpetual  harpsichord),  from 
the  smile  and  the  glimmer  of  half-sense  and  quarter- 
sense,  to  the  grin  and  hanging  lip,  of  Betty  Foy's  own 
Johnny  ?  And  does  the  face-dissolving  ciu*few  sound 
at  twelve  ?  How  unlike  the  great  originals  were  your 
petty  terrors  in  the  postscript,  not  fearful  enough  to 
make  a  fairy  shudder,  or  a  Liliputian  fine  lady,  eight 
months  ftill  of  child,  miscarry.    Yet  one  of  them,  which 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  HI 

had  more  beast  than  the  rest,  I  thought  faintly  resem- 
bled one  of  your  brutlfications.  But,  seriously,  I  lono- 
to  see  your  own  honest  Manning-face  again.  I  did  not 
mean  a  pun, —  your  mans  face,  you  will  be  apt  to  say, 
I  know  your  wicked  will  to  pun.  I  cannot  now  write 
to  Lloyd  and  you  too,  so  you  must  convey  as  much 
interesting  intelligence  as  this  may  contain,  or  be 
thought  to  contain,  to  him  and  Sophia,  with  my 
dearest  love  atnd  remembrances. 

"  By  the  by,  I  think  you  and  Sophia  both  incorrect 
with  regard  to  the  title  of  the  play*  Allowing  your 
objection  (which  is  not  necessary,  as  pride  may  be, 
and  is  in  real  life  often,  cured  by  misfortunes  not  di- 
rectly originating  from  its  own  acts,  as  Jeremy  Taylor 
will  tell  you  a  naughty  desire  is  sometimes  sent  to  cure 
it.  I  know  you  read  these  practical  divines)  —  but  al- 
lowing your  objection,  does  not  the  betraying  of  his 
father's  secret  directly  spring  from  pride  ?  —  from  the 
pride  of  wine  and  a  full  heart,  and  a  proud  overstep- 
ping of  the  ordinary  rules  of  morality,  and  contempt 
of  the  prejudices  of  mankind,  which  are  not  to  bind 
superior  souls  — '  as  trust  in  the  matter  of  secrets  all  ties 
o[  blood,  &c.,  &c.,  keeping  oi  promises,  the  feeble  mind's 
religion,  binding  our  morning  knowledge  to  the  per- 
formance of  what  last  night's  ignorance  spake  '  —  does 
he  not  prate,  that  '  Great  Spirits '  must  do  more  than 
die  for  their  friend  —  does  not  the  pride  of  wine  incite 
him  to  display  some  e\ddence  of  friendship,  which  its 
own  irregularity  shall  make  great  ?  This  I  know,  that 
I  meant  his  punishment  not  alone  to  be  a  cure  for  his 
daily  and  habitual  pride,  but  the  direct  consequence 
and  appropriate  punishment  of  a  particular  act  of  pride. 

*  It  had  been  proposed  to  entitle  John  Woodvil  '•  Pride's  Cure." 


112  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

"  If  you  do  not  understand  it  so,  it  is  my  fault  in 
not  explaining  my  meaning. 

"  I  have  not  seen  Coleridge  since,  and  scarcely 
expect  to  see  him,  —  perhaps  he  has  been  at  Cam- 
bridge. 

"  Need  I  turn  over  to  blot  a  fresh  clean  half-sheet  ? 
merely  to  say,  what  I  hope  you  are  sure  of  without 
my  repeating  it,  that  I  would  have  you  consider  me, 
dear  Manning, 

"  Your  sincere  friend,  "  C.  Lamb." 

Early  in  the  following  year  (1800),  Lamb,  with 
his  sister,  removed  to  Chapel  Street,  Pentonville.  In 
the  summer  he  visited  Coleridge,  at  Stowey,  and  spent 
a  few  delightful  holidays  in  his  society  and  that  of 
Wordsworth,  who  then  resided  in  the  neighborhood. 
This  was  the  first  opportunity  Lamb  had  enjoyed  of 
seeing  much  of  the  poet,  who  was  destined  to  exercise 
a  beneficial  and  lasting  influence  on  the  literature  and 
moral  sense  of  the  opening  century.  At  this  time 
Lamb  was  scarcely  prepared  to  sympathize  Avith  the 
naked  simplicity  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  which 
Wordsworth  was  preparing  for  the  press.  The  "  rich 
conceits  "  of  the  writers  of  Elizabeth's  reign  had  been 
blended  with  his  first  love  of  poetry,  and  he  could  not 
at  once  acknowledge  the  serene  beauty  of  a  style, 
in  which  language  was  only  the  stainless  mirror  of 
thought,  and  which  sought  no  aid  either  from  the 
grandeur  of  artificial  life,  or  the  pomp  of  words.  In 
after-days  he  was  among  the  most  earnest  of  this  great 
poet's  admirers,  and  rejoiced  as  he  found  the  scoff- 
ers who  sneered  at  his  bold  experiment  gradually 
owning  his  power.     How  he  felt  when  the  little  gold- 


LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE.  113 

en  opportunity  of  conversation  with  Wordsworth^  and 
Coleridge  had  passed  will  appear  from  the  following 
letter,  which  seems  to  have  been  addressed  to  Cole- 
ridge shortly  after  his  return  to  London. 


TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  I  am  scarcely  yet  so  reconciled  to  the  loss  of  you, 
or  so  subsided  into  my  wonted  uniformity  of  feehng,  as 
to  sit  calmly  down  to  think  of  you  and  write  to  you. 
But  I  reason  myself  into  the  behef  that  those  few  and 
pleasant  hoHdays  shall  not  have  been  spent  in  vain.  I 
feel  improvement  in  the  recollection  of  many  a  casual 
conversation.  The  names  of  Tom  Poole,  of  Words- 
worth, and  his  good  sister,  with  thine  and  Sara's,  are 
become  '  familiar  in  my  mouth  as  household  words.' 
You  would  make  me  very  happy,  if  you  think  W.  has 
no  objection,  by  transcribing  for  me  that  inscription  of 
his.  I  have  some  scattered  sentences  ever  floating  on 
my  memory,  teasing  me  that  I  cannot  remember  more 
of  it.  You  may  believe  I  will  make  no  improper  use 
of  it.  Believe  me  I  can  think  now  of  many  subjects 
on  which  I  had  planned  gaining  information  from  you ; 
but  I  forgot  my  '  treasure's  worth '  while  I  possessed  it. 
Your  leg  is  now  become  to  me  a  matter  of  much  more 
importance  —  and  many  a  little  thing,  which  when  I 
was  present  with  you  seemed  scarce  to  indent  my  no- 
tice, now  presses  painfally  on  my  remembrance.  Is  the 
Patriot  come  yet  ?  Are  Wordsworth  and  his  sister 
gone  yet?  1  was  looking  out  for  John  Thelwall  all 
the  way  from  Bridgewater,  and  had  I  met  him,  I  think 
it  would  have  moved  almost  me  to  tears.  You  will 
oblige  me  too  by  sending  me  my  greatcoat,  which  I 

vol,,   f.  8 


114  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

left  4)ehind  in  the  oblivious  state  the  mind  is  throvm 
into  at  parting  —  is  it  not  ridiculous  that  I  sometimes 
envy  that  greatcoat  lingering  so  cunningly  behind  !  — 
at  present  I  have  none  —  so  send  it  me  by  a  Stowey 
wagon,  if  there  be  such  a  thing,  directing  for  C.  L., 
No.  45,  Chapel  Street,  Pentonville,  near  London.  But 
above  all,  that  Inscription! — it  will  recall  to  me  the 
tones  of  all  your  voices  —  and  with  them  many  a  re- 
membered kindness  to  one  who  could  and  can  repay 
you  all  only  by  the  silence  of  a  grateful  heart.  I  could 
not  talk  much,  while  I  was  with  you,  but  my  silence 
was  not  sullenness,  nor  I  hope  from  any  bad  motive  ; 
but,  in  truth,  disuse  has  made  me  awkward  at  it.  I 
know  I  behaved  myself,  particularly  at  Tom  Poole's, 
and  at  Cruikshank's,  most  like  a  sulky  child;  but 
company  and  converse  are  strange  to  me.  It  was  kind 
in  you  all  to  endure  me  as  you  did. 

"  Are  you  and  your  dear  Sara  —  to  me  also  very 
dear,  because  very  kind  —  agreed  yet  about  the  man- 
agement of  little  Hartley?  and  how  go  on  the  httle 
rogue's  teeth?  I  will  see  White  to-morrow,  and  he 
shall  send  you  information  on  that  matter ;  but  as  per- 
haps I  can  do  it  as  well  after  talking  with  him,  I  will 
keep  this  letter  open. 

"  My  love  and  thanks  to  you,  and  all  of  you. 

"C.  L." 

"  Wednesday  Evening." 

Coleridge  shortly  after  came  to  town,  to  make  ar- 
rangements for  his  contributions  to  the  daily  press. 
The  following  note  is  addressed  to  him  when  in 
London. 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  115 


TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  Jan.  2d,  1800. 

"  Dear  Coleridge,  —  Now  I  write,  I  cannot  miss 
this  opportunity  of  acknowledging  the  obligations  my- 
self, and  the  readers  in  general  of  that  luminous  paper, 
the  '  Morning  Post,'  are  under  to  you  for  the  very 
novel  and  exquisite  manner  in  which  you  combined 
political  with  grammatical  science,  in  your  yesterday's 
dissertation  on  Mr.  Wyndham's  unhappy  composition. 
It  must  have  been  the  death-blow  to  that  ministiy.  I 
expect  Pitt  and  Grenville  to  resign.  More  especially 
the  delicate  and  Cottrellian  grace  with  which  you  offi- 
ciated, with  a  ferula  for  a  white  wand,  as  gentleman- 
usher  to  the  word  '  also,'  which  it  seems  did  not  know 
its  place. 

"  I  expect  Manning  of  Cambridge  in  town  to-night 
—  will  you  fulfil  your  promise  of  meeting  him  at  my 
house  ?  He  is  a  man  of  a  thousand.  Give  me  a  line 
to  say  what  day,  whether  Saturday,  Sunday,  Monday, 
&c.,  and  if  Sara  and  the  Philosopher  can  come.  I  am 
afraid  if  I  did  not  at  intervals  call  upon  you,  I  should 
never  see  you.  But  I  forget,  the  affaii's  of  the  nation 
engross  your  time  and  your  mind. 

"  Farewell.  »  C.  L." 

Coleridge  afterwards  spent  some  weeks  with  Lamb, 
as  appears  from  the  following  letter :  — 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  March  17th,  1800. 

"  Dear   Manning,  —  I  am    living   in    a   continuous 


116  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

feast.  Coleridge  has  been  with  me  now  for  nigh  three 
weeks,  and  the  more  I  see  of  him  in  the  quotidian  un- 
dress and  relaxation  of  his  mind,  the  more  cause  I  see 
to  love  him,  and  believe  him  a  very  good  wan,  and 
all  those  foolish  impressions  to  the  contrary  fly  off 
like  morning  slumbers.  He  is  engaged  in  translations, 
which  I  hope  will  keep  him  this  month  to  come.  He 
is  uncommonly  kind  and  friendly  to  me.  He  ferrets  me 
day  and  night  to  do  something.  He  tends  me,  amidst 
all  his  own  worrying  and  heart-oppressing  occupations, 
as  a  gardener  tends  his  young  tulip.  Marry  come  up ; 
what  a  pretty  similitude,  and  how  like  your  hvunble 
servant !  He  has  lugged  me  to  the  brink  of  engaging 
to  a  newspaper,  and  has  suggested  to  me  for  a  first 
plan,  the  forgery  of  a  supposed  manuscript  of  Burton 
the  anatomist  of  melancholy.  I  have  even  written  the 
introductory  letter ;  and,  if  I  can  pick  up  a  few  guineas 
this  way,  I  feel  they  will  be  most  refreshing,  bread  be- 
ing so  dear.  If  I  go  on  with  it,  I  will  apprise  you  of 
it,  as  you  may  like  to  see  my  things !  and  the  tulip  of 
all  flowers,  loves  to  be  admired  most. 

"  Pray  pardon  me,  if  my  letters  do  not  come  very 
thick.  I  am  ^o  taken  up  with  one  thing  or  other, 
that  I  cannot  pick  out  (I  will  not  say  time,  but) 
fitting  times  to  write  to  you.  My  dear  love  to  Lloyd 
and  Sophia,  and  pray  split  this  thin  letter  into  three 
parts,  and  present  them  with  the  two  biggest  in  my 
name. 

"  They  are  my  oldest  friends ;  but,  ever  the  new 
friend  driveth  out  the  old,  as  the  ballad  sings !  God 
bless  you  all  three !  I  would  hear  from  LI.  if  I 
could. 

"  C.  L." 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  117 

"  Flour  has  just  fallen  nine  shillings  a  sack !  we 
shall  be  all  too  rich. 

"  Tell  Charles  I  have  seen  his  mamma,  and  have 
almost  fallen  in  love  with  her^  since  I  mayn't  with 
Olivia.  She  is  so  fine  and  graceful,  a  complete 
matron-ladj-quaker.  She  has  given  me  two  httle 
books.  Olivia  grows  a  charming  girl  —  full  of  feeling, 
and  thinner  than  she  was;  but  I  have  not  time  to 
fall  in  love. 

"  Mary  presents  her  general  compliments.  She  keeps 
in  fine  health !  " 

Coleridge,  during  this  visit,  recommended  Lamb  to 
Mr.  Daniel  Stuart,  then  editor  of  the  "  Morning 
Post,  "  as  a  writer  of  light  articles,  by  which  he  might 
add  something  to  an  income,  then  barely  sufficient 
for  the  decent  support  of  himself  and  his  sister.  It 
would  seem  fi:om  his  next  letter  to  Manning,  that  he 
had  made  an  offer  to  try  his  hand  at  some  personal 
squibs,  which,  ultimately,  was  not  accepted.  Manning 
need  not  have  feared  that  there  would  have  been  a 
particle  of  malice  in  them !  Lamb  afterwards  became 
a  correspondent  to  the  paper,  and  has  recorded  his 
experience  of  the  misery  of  toiling  after  pleasantries 
in  one  of  the  "  Essays  of  Elia,"  entitled  "  Newspapers 
thirty-five  years  ago." 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  C.  L.'s  moral  sense  presents  her  compliments  to 
Doctor  Manning,  is  very  thankful  for  his  medical 
ad^^ce,  but  is  happy  to  add  that  her  disorder  has  died 
of  itself. 


118  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

"  Dr.  Manning,  Coleridge  has  left  us,  to  go  into 
the  north,  on  a  visit  to  his  God,  Wordsworth.  With 
him  have  flown  all  my  splendid  prospects  of  engage- 
ment with  the  '  Morning  Post,'  all  my  visionary  guin- 
eas, the  deceitful  wages  of  unborn  scandal.  In  truth 
I  wonder  you  took  it  up  so  seriously.  All  my  inten- 
tion was  but  to  make  a  little  sport  with  such  public 
and  fair  game  as  Mr.  Pitt,  Mr.  Wilberforce,  Mrs. 
Fitzherbert,  the  Devil,  &c.  —  gentry  dipped  in  Styx 
all  over,  whom  no  paper  javeHn-lings  can  touch.  To 
have  made  free  with  these  cattle,  where  was  the 
harm  ?  'twould  have  been  but  giving  a  polish  to 
lampblack,  not  nigrifying  a  negro  primarily.  After 
all,  I  cannot  but  regret  my  involuntary  virtue.  Hang 
virtue  that's  thrust  upon  us  ;  it  behaves  itself  with 
such  constraint,  till  conscience  opens  the  window  and 
lets  out  the  goose.  I  had  struck  off  two  imitations 
of  Burton,  quite  abstracted  from  any  modern  allusions, 
which  was  my  intent  only  to  lug  in  from  time  to  time 
to  make  'em  popular. 

"  Stuart  has  got  these,  with  an  introductory  letter  ; 
but,  not  hearing  from  him,  I  have  ceased  fi'om  my  la- 
bors, but  I  write  to  him  to-day  to  get  a  final  answer. 
I  am  afraid  they  won't  do  for  a  paper.  Burton  is  a 
scarce  gentleman,  not  much  known,  else  I  had  done 
'em  pretty  well. 

"  I  have  also  hit  off  a  few  lines  in  the  name  of  Bur- 
ton, beino;  a  '  Conceit  of  DiaboHc  Possession.'  Bur- 
ton  was  a  man  often  assailed  by  deepest  melancholy, 
and  at  other  times  much  given  to  laughing,  and  jest- 
ing, as  is  the  way  with  melancholy  men.  I  will  send 
them  you :  they  were  almost  extempore,  and  no  great 
things  ;  but  you  will  indulge  them.     Robert  Lloyd  is 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  119 

come  to  town.  Priscilla  meditates  going  to  see  '  Pizar- 
ro '  at  Drury  Lane  to-night  (from  her  uncle's),  under 
cover  of  coming  to  dine  with  me  .  .  heu !  tempora ! 
Tieu !  mores  I  —  I  have  barely  time  to  finish,  as  I  ex- 
pect her  and  Robin  every  minute.  —  Yours  as  usual, 

"  C.  L." 

The  followine:  is  an  extract  from  a  letter  addressed 
about  this  time  to  Manning,  who  had  taken  a  view  of 
a  personal  matter  relating  to  a  common  friend  of  both, 
directly  contrary  to  that  of  Lamb. 


TO  MR.   MANNING. 

"  Dear  Manning,  —  Rest  you  merry  in  your  opin- 
ion !  Opinion  is  a  species  of  property ;  and  though 
I  am  always  desu'ous  to  share  with  my  friend  to  a 
certain  extent,  I  shall  ever  like  to  keep  some  tenets, 
and  some  property,  properly  my  own.  Some  day. 
Manning,  when  we  meet,  substituting  Corydon  and 
fair  Amaryllis,  for and ,  we  will  discuss  to- 
gether this  question  of  moral  feeling,  '  In  what  cases, 
and  how  far  smcerity  is  a  virtue  ? '  I  do  not  mean 
Truth,  a  good  OHvia-hke  creature,  God  bless  her,  who, 
meaning  no  offence,  is  always  ready  to  give  an  an- 
swer when  she  is  asked  why  she  did  so  and  so  ;  but  a 
certain  forward-talking  half-brother  of  hers.  Sincerity, 
that  amphibious  gentleman,  who  is  so  ready  to  perk 
up  his  obnoxious  sentiments  unasked  into  your  notice, 
as  Midas  would  his  ears  into  your  face  uncalled  for. 
But  I  despair  of  doing  anything  by  a  letter  in  the 
way  of  explaining  or  coming  to  explanations.  A  good 
wish,  or  a  pun,  or  a  piece  of  secret  history,  may  be 


120  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

well  enough  that  way  conveyed ;  nay,  it  has  been 
known,  that  intelligence  of  a  turkey  hath  been  con- 
veyed by  that  medium,  without  much  ambiguity. 
Godwin  I  am  a  good  deal  pleased  with.  He  is  a 
very  well-behaved,  decent  man,  nothing  very  brilliant 
about  him,  or  imposing,  as  you  may  suppose ;  quite 
another  guess  sort  of  gentleman  from  what  your  Anti- 
jacobin  Christians  imagine  him.  I  was  well  pleased  to 
find  he  has  neither  horns  nor  claws  ;  quite  a  tame  crea- 
ture, I  assure  you.  A  middle-sized  man,  both  in  stat- 
ure and  in  understanding ;  whereas,  from  his  noisy  fame, 
you  would  expect  to  find  a  Briareus  Centimanus,  or  a 
Tityus  tall  enough  to  pull  Jupiter  from  his  heavens. 

"  Pray,  is  it  a  part  of  your  sincerity  to  show  my 
letters  to  Lloyd  ?  for,  really,  gentlemen  ought  to  ex- 
plain their  virtues  upon  a  first  acquaintance,  to  prevent 
mistakes. 

"  God  bless  you.  Manning.  Take  my  trifling  as 
trifling  ;  and  believe  me,  seriously  and  deeply,  —  Your 
well-wisher  and  friend,  "  C.  L." 

The  followino;  letter  was  addressed  to  Colerido;e  short- 
ly  after  he  had  left  London  on  a  visit  to  Wordsworth, 
who  in  the  mean  time  had  settled  on  the  borders  of 
Grasmere. 

TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Aug.  6th,  1800. 

"  Dear  Coleridge,  —  I  have  taken  to-day,  and  de- 
livered to  L.  &  Co.,  Imprimis :  your  books,  viz.,  three 
ponderous  German  dictionaries,  one  volume  (I  can 
find  no  more)  of  German  and  French  ditto,  sundry 
other  German  books  unbound,  as  you  left  them,  '  Per- 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  121 

cy's  Ancient  Poetry,'  and  one  volume  of  '  Anderson's 
Poets.'  I  specify  them,  that  you  may  not  lose  any. 
Secundo  :  a  dressing-gown  (value,  fivepence)  in  which 
you  used  to  sit  and  look  Hke  a  conjuror,  when  you 
were  translating  Wallenstein.  A  case  of  two  razors, 
and  a  sha\Tag-box  and  strap.  This  it  has  cost  me  a 
severe  struggle  to  part  with.  They  are  in  a  brown- 
paper  parcel,  which  also  contains  sundry  papers  and 
poems,  sermons,  some  few  Epic  Poems,  —  one  about 
Cain  and  Abel,  which  came  from  Poole,  &c.,  &c., 
and  also  your  tragedy  ;  with  one  or  two  small  Ger- 
man books,  and  that  drama  in  which  Got-fader  per- 
forms. Tertio  :  a  small  oblong  box  containing  all  your 
letters^  collected  from  all  your  waste  papers,  and  which 
fill  the  said  little  box.  All  other  waste  papers,  which 
I  judged  worth  sending,  are  in  the  paper  parcel  afore- 
said. But  you  will  find  all  your  letters  in  the  box 
by  themselves.  Thus  have  I  discharged  my  con- 
science and  my  lumber-room  of  all  your  property, 
save  and  except  a  folio  entitled  '  Tyrrell's  Bibliotheca 
Politica,'  which  you  used  to  learn  your  politics  out  of 
when  you  wrote  for  the  '  Post,'  mutatis  mutandis^  i.  e.y 
applying  past  inferences  to  modern  data.  I  retain  that, 
because  I  am  sensible  I  am  very  deficient  in  the  pol- 
itics myself:  and  I  have  torn  up  —  don't  be  angry, 
waste  paper  has  risen  forty  per  cent.,  and  I  can't 
afford  to  buy  it  —  all  '  Buonaparte's  Letters,'  '  Arthur 
Young's  Treatise  on  Corn,'  and  one  or  two  more  light- 
armed  infantry,  which  I  thought  better  suited  the  flip- 
pancy of  London  discussion,  than  the  dignity  of  Kes- 
wick thinking.  Mary  says  you  will  be  in  a  passion 
about  them,  when  you  come  to  miss  them  ;  but  you 
must  study  philosophy.     Read  '  Albertus  Magnus  de 


122  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

Chartis  Amissis'  five  times  over  after  phlebotomiz- 
ing, —  'tis  Burton's  recipe  —  and  then  be  angry  with 
an  absent  friend  if  you  can.  Sara  is  obscure.  Am 
I  to  understand  by   her  letter,  that  she  sends  a  kiss 

to  Eliza  B ?     Pray  tell  your  wife  that  a  note  of 

interrogation  on  the  superscription  of  a  letter  is  high- 
ly ungrammatical  —  she  proposes  writing  my  name 
Lamb?  Lambe  is  quite  enough.  I  have  had  the  '  An- 
thology,' and  like  only  one  thing  in  it,  Lewti ;  but  of 
that  the  last  stanza  is  detestable,  the  rest  most  exqui- 
site !  —  the  epithet  enviable  would  dash  the  finest  poem. 
For  God's  sake  (I  never  was  more  serious),  don't 
make  me  ridiculous  any  more  by  terming  me  gentle- 
hearted  in  print,  or  do  it  in  better  verses.  It  did  well 
enough  five  years  ago  when  I  came  to  see  you,  and 
was  moral  coxcomb  enough  at  the  time  you  wrote 
the  fines  to  feed  upon  such  epithets ;  but,  besides  that, 
the  meaning  of  gentle  is  equivocal  at  best,  and  almost 
always  means  poor-spirited ;  the  veiy  quality  of  gen- 
tleness is  abhorrent  to  such  vile  trumpetings.  My 
sentiment  is  long  since  vanished.  I  hope  my  virtues 
have  done  sucking.  I  can  scarce  think  but  you  meant 
it  in  joke.  I  hope  you  did,  for  I  should  be  ashamed 
to  think  you  could  think  to  gratify  me  by  such  praise, 
fit  only  to  be  a  cordial  to  some  green-sick  sonneteer.* 

*  This  refers  to  a  poem  of  Coleridge's  composed  in  1797,  and  published 
in  the  "  Anthology"  of  the  year  1800,  under  the  title  of  "  This  Lime-tree 
Bower  my  Prison,"  addressed  to  "  Charles  Lamb,  of  the  India  House, 
London,"  in  which  Lamb  is  thus  apostrophized,  as  taking  more  pleasure 
in  the  country  than  Coleridge's  other  visitors  —  a  compliment  which  even 
then  he  scarcely  merited: 

" But  thou,  methinks  most  glad. 

My  gentle-hearted  Charles !     For  thou  hast  pined 
And  liuger'd  after  nature  many  a  year, 
In  the  great  city  pent,"  — &c. 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  123 

"  I  have  hit  off  the  following  in  imitation  of  old 
Enghsh  poetry,  which,  I  imagine,  I  am  a  dab  at. 
The  measure  is  unmeasurable ;  but  it  most  resembles 
that  beautiful  ballad  the  '  Old  and  Young  Courtier ; ' 
and  in  its  feature  of  takino-  the  extremes  of  two  sit- 
nations  for  just  parallel,  it  resembles  the  old  poetry 
certainly.  If  I  could  but  stretch  out  the  circum- 
stances to  twelve  more  verses,  i.  g.,  if  I  had  as  much 
genius  as  the  writer  of  that  old  song,  I  think  it  would 
be  excellent.  It  was  to  follow  an  imitation  of  Bur- 
ton in  prose,  which  you  have  not  seen.  But  fate 
'and  wisest  Stewart'  say  No.* 

"  I  can  send  you  200  pens  and  six  quires  of  paper 
immediately,  if  they  will  answer  the  carriage  by  coach. 
It  would  be  foolish  to  pack  'em  up  cum  multis  lihris  et 
coeteris,  —  they  would  all  spoil.  I  only  wait  your 
commands  to  coach  them.  I  would  pay  five-and- 
forty  thousand  carriages  to  read  W.'s  tragedy,  of 
which  I  have  heard  so  much  and  seen  so  little  — 
only  what  I  saw  at  Stowey.  Pray  give  me  an  order 
in  writing  on  Longman  for  '  Lyrical  Ballads.'  I 
have  the  first  volume,  and,  truth  to  tell,  six  shillings 
is  a  broad  shot.  I  cram  all  I  can  in,  to  save  a  mul- 
tiplying of  letters,  —  those  pretty  comets  with  swing- 
ing tails. 

"  I'll  just  crowd  in  God  bless  you ! 

"  C.  Lamb." 

"  John  Woodvil "  was  now  printed,  although  not 
published   till    a  year    afterwards ;    probably  withheld 

*  The  quaint  and  pathetic  poem,  entitled  "  A  Ballad,  noticing  the  dif- 
ference of  rich  and  poor,  in  the  ways  of  a  rich  noble's  palace  and  a  poor 
workhouse." 


124  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDG-E. 

in  the  hope  of  its  representation  on  the  stage.  A 
copy  M^as  sent  to  Coleridge  for  Wordsworth,  with 
the  following  letter  or  cluster  of  letters,  written  at 
several  times.  The  ladles  referred  to,  in  the  exqui- 
site description  of  Coleridge's  bluestocking  friends,  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  feeling  its  application;  nor  will 
it  be  detected  by  the  most  apprehensive  of  their  sur- 
viving friends. 


TO   MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  I  send  you,  in  this  parcel,  my  play,  which  I  beg 
you  to  present  in  my  name,  with  my  respect  and  love, 
to    Wordsworth   and   his   sister.      You   blame   us  for 

giving   your  direction    to    Miss  W ;    the  woman 

has  been  ten  times  after  us  about  it,  and  we  gave  it 
her  at  last,  under  the  idea  that  no  further  harm 
would  ensue,  but  she  would  once  write  to  you,  and 
you  would  bite  your  lips  and  forget  to  answer  it,  and 
so  it  would  end.  You  read  us  a  dismal  homily  upon 
'  Realities.'  We  know,  quite  as  well  as  you  do, 
what  are  shadows  and  what  are  realities.  You,  for 
instance,  when  you  are  over  your  fourth  or  fifth 
jorum,  chirping  about  old  school  occurrences,  are  the 
best  of  realities.     Shadows  are  cold,  thin  things,  that 

have   no  warmth  or   grasp   in   them.     Miss    W , 

and  her  friend,  and  a  tribe  of  authoresses  that  come 
after  you  here  daily,  and,  in  defect  of  you,  hive  and 
cluster  upon  us,  are  the   shadows.     You  encouraged 

that  mopsey,  Miss  W ,  to  dance  after  you,  in  the 

hope  of  having  her  nonsense  put  into  a  nonsensical 
Anthology.  We  have  pretty  well  shaken  her  off,  by 
that  simple   expedient   of  referring   her  to  you;    but 


LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE.  125 

there  are  more  burrs  in  the  wind.  I  came  home 
t'other  day  from  business,  hungry  as  a  hunter,  to 
dinner,  with  nothing,  I  am  sure,  of  the  author  hut 
hunger   about  me,   and  whom  found  I  closeted  with 

Mary   but   a  friend   of  this    Miss  W ,  one   Miss 

B e,  or   B y ;   I  don't  know  how  she   spells 

her  name.  I  just  came  in  time  enough,  I  believe, 
luckily  to  prevent  them  from  exchanging  vows  of 
eternal  friendship.  It  seems  she  is  one  of  your  au- 
thoresses, that  you  first  foster,  and  then  upbraid  us 
with.  But  I  forgive  you.  '  The  rogue  has  given 
me  potions  to  make  me  love  him.'  Well;  go  she 
would  not,  nor  step  a  step  over  our  threshold,  till  we 
had  promised  to  come  and  drink  tea  with  her  next 
night.  I  had  never  seen  her  before,  and  could  not 
tell  who  the  devil  it  was  that  was  so  familiar.  We 
went,    however,    not   to   be   impolite.      Her   lodgings 

are  up  two  pair  of  staii's  in  Street.     Tea  and 

coffee,  and  macaroons,  a  kind  of  cake  I  much  love. 
We  sat  down.  Presently  Miss  B broke  the  si- 
lence, by  declaring  herself  quite  of  a  different  opinion 
from  D^Israeli,  who  supposes  the  differences  of  hu- 
man intellect  to  be  the  mere  effect  of  organization. 
She  begged  to  know  my  opinion.  I  attempted  to 
carry  it  off  with  a  pun  upon  organ,  but  that  went  off 
very  flat.  She  immediately  conceived  a  very  low 
opinion  of  my  metaphysics ;  and,  turning  round  to 
Mary,  put  some  question  to  her  in  French,  —  possibly 
having  heard  that  neither  Mary  nor  I  understood 
French.  The  explanation  that  took  place  occasioned 
some  embarrassment  and  much  wondering.  She  then 
fell  into  an  insulting  conversation  about  the  compar- 
ative genius  and  merits  of  all  modem  languages,  and 


126  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

concluded  with  assertino;  that  the  Saxon  was  esteemed 
the  purest  dialect  in  Germany.  From  thence  she 
passed  into  the  subject  of  poetry ;  where  I,  who  had 
hitherto  sat  mute,  and  a  hearer  only,  humbly  hoped 
I  might  now  put  in  a  word  to  some  advantage,  see- 
ing that  it  was  my  own  trade  in  a  manner.  But  I 
was  stopped  by  a  round  assertion,  that  no  good  poetry 
had  appeared  since  Dr.  Johnson's  time.  It  seems  the 
Doctor  has  suppressed  many  hopefbl  geniuses  that 
way,  by  the  severity  of  his  critical  strictures  in  his 
'Lives  of  the  Poets.'  I  here  ventured  to  question  the 
fact,  and  was  beginning  to  appeal  to  names,  but  I 
was  assured  '  it  was  certainly  the  case.'  Then  we 
discussed  Miss  More's  book  on  education,  which  I 
had  never  read.     It  seems  Dr.   Gregory,  another  of 

Miss    B 's  friends,  has   found   fault   with   one   of 

Miss  More's  metaphors.  Miss  More  has  been  at  some 
jjains  to   vindicate    herself,  —  in   the   opinion  of  Miss 

B ,  not  without  success.     It  seems  the  Doctor  is 

invariably  against  the  use  of  broken  or  mixed  met- 
aphor, which  he  reprobates,  against  the  authority  of 
Shakspeare  himself.  We  next  discussed  the  question, 
whether  Pope  was  a  poet  ?  I  find  Dr.  Gregory  is 
of  opinion  he  was  not,  though  Miss  Seward  does  not 
at  all  concur  with  him  in  this.  We  then  sat  upon 
the  comparative  merits  of  the  ten  translations  of  '  Pi- 

zarro,'  and  Miss  B y  or  B e  advised  Mary  to 

take  two  of  them  home ;  she  thought  it  might  afford 
her  some  pleasure  to  compare  them  verbatim;  which 
we  declined.  It  being  now  nine  o'clock,  wine  and 
macaroons  were  again  served  round,  and  we  parted, 
with  a  promise  to  go  again  next  week,  and  meet  the 
Miss  Porters,  who,  it  seems,  have  heard  much  of  Mr. 


LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE.  127 

Coleridge,  and  wish  to  meet  ms,  because  we  are  his 
friends.  I  have  been  preparing  for  the  occasion.  I 
crowd  cotton  in  my  ears.  I  read  all  the  reviews 
and  magazines  of  the  past  month,  against  the  dread- 
ful meeting,  and  I  hope  bj  these  means  to  cut  a  tol- 
erable second-rate  figure. 

"  Pray  let  us  have  no  more  complaints  about  shad- 
ows. We  are  in  a  fair  way,  through  you,  to  surfeit 
sick  upon  them. 

"  Our  loves  and  respects  to  your  host  and  hostess. 

"  Take  no  thought  about  your  proof-sheets ;  they 
shall  be  done  as  if  Woodfall  himself  did  them.  Pray 
send  us  word  of  Mrs.  Coleridge  and  little  David  Hart- 
ley, your  little  reality. 

"  Farewell,  dear  Substance.  Take  no  umbrage  at 
anything  I  have  written. 

"  C.  Lamb,  Umbra," 

"  Land  of  Shadows, 
Shadow-month  the  16th  or  17th,  1800." 

"Coleridge,  I  find  loose  among  your  papers  a  copy 
of  '  Christabel.'  It  wants  about  thirty  lines  ;  you  will 
very  much  oblige  me  by  sending  me  the  beginning 
as  far  as  that  line, — 

'  And  the  spring  comes  slowly  up  this  way  ; ' 

and  the  intermediate  lines  between  — 

'  The  lady  leaps  up  suddenly, 
The  lovely  Lady  Christabel ; ' 

and  the  lines,  — 

She  folded  her  arms  beneath  her  cloak. 
And  stole  to  the  other  side  of  the  oak.' 

The  trouble  to  you  will  be  small,  and  the  benefit  to 


128  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

US   very  great !     A   pretty   antithesis !      A   figure   in 
speech   I  much  applaud. 

"  Godwin  has  called  upon  us.  He  spent  one  evening 
here.  Was  very  friendly.  Kept  us  up  till  midnight. 
Drank  punch,  and  talked  about  you.  He  seems, 
above  all  men,  mortified  at  your  going  away.  Sup- 
pose you  were  to  write  to  that  good-natured  heathen : 
'  or  is  he  a  shadow  f ' 

"  If  I  do  not  write,  impute  it  to  the  long  postage, 
of  which  you  have  so  much  cause  to  complain.  I 
have  scribbled  over  a  queer  letter,  as  I  find  by  perusal, 
but  it  means  no  mischief. 

"  I  am,  and  will  be,  yours  ever,  in  sober  sadness, 

"C.  L. 

"  Write  your  Crerman  as  plain  as  sunshine,  for  that 
must  correct  itself.  You  know  I  am  homo  unius 
linguse;    in  English,  illiterate,  a  dunce,  a  ninny." 


TO   MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Aug.  26th,  1800. 

"  How  do  you  like  this  little  epigram  ?  It  is  not 
my  writing  nor  had  I  any  finger  in  it.  If  you  con- 
cur with  me  in  thinking  it  very  elegant  and  very 
original,  I  shall  be  tempted  to  name  the  author  to 
you.  I  will  just  hint  that  it  is  almost  or  quite  a  first 
attempt. 

[Here  Miss  Lamb's  little  poem  of  Helen  was  intro- 
duced.] 

"  By-the-by,  I  have  a  sort  of  recollection  that  some- 
body, I  think  you,  promised   me  a  sight   of  Words- 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  129 

worth's  Tragedy.  I  should  be  very  glad  of  It  just 
now ;  for  I  have  got  Manning  with  me,  and  should 
like  to  read  it  iviih  him.  But  this,  I  confess,  is  a  re- 
finement. Under  any  circumstances,  alone,  in  Cold- 
Bath  prison,  or  in  the  desert  island,  just  when  Pros- 
pero  and  his  crew  had  set  off,  with  Caliban  in  a  cage, 
to  Milan,  it  would  be  a  treat  to  me  to  read  that  play. 
Manning  has  read  it,  so  has  Lloyd,  and  all  Lloyd's 
family ;  but  I  could  not  get  him  to  betray  his  trust  by 
giving  me  a  sight  of  it.  Lloyd  is  sadly  deficient  in 
some  of  those  vu'tuous  vices. 

"  George  Dyer  is  the  only  literary  character  I  am 
happily  acquainted  with.  The  oftener  I  see  him,  the 
more  deeply  I  admire  him.  He  is  goodness  itself. 
If  I  could  but  calculate  the  precise  date  of  his  death, 
I  would  write  a  novel  on  purpose  to  make  George  the 
hero.     I  could  hit  him  off  to  a  hair." 

The  tragedy  which  Lamb  was  thus  anxious  to  read, 
has  been  perseveringly  withheld  from  the  world.  A 
fine  passage,  quoted  in  one  of  Hazlitt's  prose  essays, 
makes  us  share  in  his  earnest  curiosity :  — 

"  Action  is  momentary  —  a  word,  a  blow  — 
The  motion  of  a  muscle  —  this  way  or  that ; 
Suffering  is  long,  drear,  and  infinite." 

Wordsworth's  genius  is  perhaps  more  fitly  em- 
ployed in  thus  tracing  out  the  springs  of  heroic  pas- 
sion, and  developing  the  profound  elements  of  human 
character,  than  in  following;  them  out  throuo;h  their 
exhibition  in  Aaolent  contest  or  majestic  repose.  Surely 
he  may  now  afford  to  gratify  the  world  ! 

The  next  is  a  short  but  characteristic  letter  to  Man- 
nino;. 

VOL.   I.  9 


130  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

Aug.  11th,  1800. 

"My  dear  fellow,  (N.  B.  mighty  familiar  of  late!) 
for  me  to  come  to  Cambridge  now  is  one  of  Heaven's 
impossibilities.  Metaphysicians  tell  us,  even  it  can 
work  nothing  which  implies  a  contradiction.  I  can 
explain  this  by  telling  you  that  I  am  engaged  to  do 
double  duty  (this  hot  weather!)  for  a  man  who  has 
taken  advantage  of  this  very  weather  to  go  and  cool 
himself  in  '  green  retreats '  all  the  month  of  August. 

"But  for  you  to  come  to  London  instead! — muse 
upon  it,  revolve  it,  cast  it  about  in  your  mind.  I 
have  a  bed  at  your  command.  You  shall  drink  rum, 
brandy,  gin,  aqua-vitae,  usquebaugh,  or  whiskey  a' 
nights ;  and  for  the  after-dinner  trick,  I  have  eight 
bottles  of  genuine  port,  which,  mathematically  di- 
vided, gives  ly  for  every  day  you  stay,  provided  you 
stay  a  week.     Hear  John  Milton  sing, 

'  Let  Euclid  rest  and  Archimedes  pause. ' 

Twenty-Jirst  Sonnet. 

And  elsewhere,  — 

'  What  neat  repast  shall  feast  us,  light  *  and  choice, 
Of  Attic  taste,  with  wine,t  whence  we  may  rise 
To  hear  the  lute  well  touch' d,  or  artful  voice 
Warble  immortal  notes  and  Tuscan  air  ?  ' 

"Indeed  the  poets  are  full  of  this  pleasing  moral- 
ity,— 

'  Veni  cito,  Domine  Manning ! ' 

"  Think  upon  it.  Excuse  the  paper,  it  is  all  I 
have.  "  C.  Lamb." 

*  "We,  poets!  generally  give  %A<  dinners." 

t  "  No  doubt  the  poet  here  alludes  to  port-wine  at  38s.  the  dozen." 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  131 

Lamb  now  meditated  a  removal  to  the  home-place 
of  his  best  and  most  solemn  thoughts  —  the  Temple ; 
and  thus  announced  it  in  a  letter  to  Manning. 


TO   MR.  MANNING. 

"  You  masters  of  logic  ought  to  know  (logic  is 
nothing  more  than  a  knowledge  of  words,  as  the 
Greek  etymon  implies),  that  all  words  are  no  more 
to  be  taken  in  a  literal  sense  at  all  times  than  a  prom- 
ise given  to  a  tailor.  When  I  exprest  an  ajoprehen- 
sion  that  you  were  mortally  offended,  I  meant  no 
more  than  by  the  application  of  a  certain  formula  of 
efficacious  sounds,  which  had  done  in  similar  cases 
before,  to  rouse  a  sense  of  decency  in  you,  and  a  re- 
membrance of  what  was  due  to  me  !  You  masters  of 
logic  should  advert  to  this  phenomenon  in  human 
speech,  before  you  arraign  the  usage  of  us  dramatic 
geniuses.  Imagination  is  a  good  blood  mare,  and 
goes  well ;  but  the  misfortune  is,  she  has  too  many 
paths  before  her.  'Tis  true  I  might  have  imaged  to 
myself,  that  you  had  trundled  your  frail  carcass  to 
Norfolk.  I  might  also,  and  did  imagine,  that  you 
had  not,  but  that  you  were  lazy,  or  inventing  new 
properties  in  a  triangle,  and  for  that  purpose  mould- 
ing and  squeezing  Landlord  Crisp's  three-cornered 
beaver  into  fantastic  experimental  forms ;  or,  that 
Archimedes  was  meditating  to  repulse  the  French,  in 
case  of  a  Cambridge  invasion,  by  a  geometric  hurling 
of  folios  on  their  red  caps  ;  or,  peradventure,  tliat  you 
were  in  extremities,  in  great  wants,  and  just  set  out 
for  Trinity-bogs  when  my  letters  came.  In  short, 
my  genius !    (which    Is    a    short   word   nov/adays,  for 


132  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

what-a-great-man-am-I !)  was  absolutely  stifled  and 
overlaid  with  its  own  riches.  Truth  is  one  and  poor, 
like  the  cruse  of  Elijah's  widow.  Imagination  is  the 
bold  face  that  multiplies  its  oil ;  and  thou,  the  old 
cracked  pipkin,  that  could  not  believe  it  could  be  put 
to  such  purposes.  Dull  pipkin,  to  have  Elijah  for  thy 
cook.  Imbecile  recipient  of  so  fat  a  miracle.  I  send 
you  George  Dyer's  Poems,  the  richest  production  of 
the  lyrical  muse  this  century  can  justly  boast:  for 
Wordsworth's  L.  B.  were  published,  or  at  least  writ- 
ten, before  Christmas. 

"  Please  to  advert  to  pages  291  to  296  for  the  most 
astonishing  account  of  where  Shakspeare's  muse  has 
been  all  this  while.  I  thought  she  had  been  dead, 
and  buried  in  Stratford  Church,  with  the  young  man 
that  kept  her  company,  — 

'  But  it  seems,  like  the  Devil, 
Buried  in  Cole  Harbor, 
Some  say  she's  risen  again, 
Gone  'prentice  to  a  Barber.' 

"  N.  B.  — I  don't  charge  anything  for  the  additional 
manuscript  notes,  which  are  the  joint  productions  of 

myself  and  a  learned  translator  of  Schiller, Stod- 

dart,  Esq. 

"N.  B.  the  2d.  —  I  should  not  have  blotted  your 
book,  but  I  sent  my  own  out  to  be  bound,  as  I 
was  in  duty  bound.  A  liberal  criticism  upon  the 
several  pieces,  lyrical,  heroical,  amatory,  and  satirical, 
would  be  acceptable.  So,  you  don't  think  there's  a 
Word's  —  worth  of  good  poetry  in  the  great  L.  B.  ! 
I  daren't  put  the  dreaded  syllables  at  their  just  length, 
for  my  hack  tingles  from  the  northern  castigation. 

"  I  am  going  to  change  my  lodgings,  having  received 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  133 

a  hint  that  it  would  be  agi-eeable,  at  our  Lady's  next 
feast.  I  have  partly  fixed  upon  most  delectable  rooms, 
which  look  out  (when  you  stand  a  tiptoe)  over  the 
Thames,  and  Surrey  Hills ;  at  the  upper  end  of 
King's  Bench  walks,  in  the  Temple.  There  I  shall 
have  all  the  privacy  of  a  house  without  the  encum- 
brance, and  shall  be  able  to  lock  my  friends  out  as 
often  as  I  desire  to  hold  free  converse  with  my  im- 
mortal mind,  for  my  present  lodgings  resemble  a  minis- 
ter's levee,  I  have  so  increased  my  acquaintance  (as 
they  call  'em)  since  I  have  resided  in  town.  Like 
the  country  mouse,  that  had  tasted  a  httle  of  urbane 
manners,  I  long  to  be  nibbling  my  own  cheese  by 
my  dear  self,  without  mouse-traps  and  time-traps.  By 
my  new  plan,  I  shall  be  as  airy,  up  four  pair  of 
stairs,  as  in  the  country ;  and  in  a  garden,  in  the 
midst  of  enchanting,  more  than  Mahometan  paradise, 
London,  whose  dii'tiest  drab-frequented  alley,  and  her 
lowest  bowing  tradesman,  I  would  not  exchange  for 
Skiddaw,  Helvellyn,  James,  Walter,  and  the  parson 
into  the  bargain.  O  !  her  lamps  of  a  night !  her  rich 
goldsmiths,  print-shops,  toy-shops,  mercers,  hardware- 
men,  pastry-cooks  !  St.  Paul's  churchyard !  the  Strand  ! 
Exeter  Change  !  Charing  Cross,  with  the  man  upon 
a  black  horse !  These  are  thy  gods,  O  London ! 
An't  you  mightily  moped  on  the  banks  of  the  Cam? 
Had  not  you  better  come  and  set  up  here  ?  You 
can't  think  what  a  difference.  All  the  streets  and 
pavements  are  pure  gold,  I  warrant  you.  At  least, 
I  know  an  alchemy  that  turns  her  mud  into  that  met- 
al, —  a  mind  that  loves  to  be  at  home  in  crowds. 

"  'Tis  half-past  twelve  o'clock,  and  all  sober  people 
ought  to  be  a-bed. 

"  C.  Lamb  (as  you  may  guess)." 


134  LETTER   TO    COLERIDGE. 

The  following  two  letters  appear  to  have  been  writ- 
ten during  Coleridge's  visit  to  Wordsworth. 


TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  By  some  fatality,  unusual  with  me,  I  have  mislaid 
the  list  of  books  which  you  M'ant.  Can  you  from 
memory,   easily  supply  me  with  another? 

"  I  confess  to  Statius,  and  I  detained  him  wilfully, 
out  of  a  reverent  regard  to  your  style.  Statius,  they 
tell  me,  is  turgid.  As  to  that  other  Latin  book,  since 
you  know  neither  its  name  nor  subject,  your  wants 
(I  crave  leave  to  apprehend)  cannot  be  very  urgent. 
Meanwhile,  dream  that  it  is  one  of  the  lost  Decades 
of  Livy. 

"  Your  partiality  to  me  has  led  you  to  form  an 
erroneous  opinion  as  to  the  measure  of  delight  you 
suppose  me  to  take  in  obliging.  Pray,  be  careful  that 
it  spread  no  further.  'Tis  one  of  those  heresies  that 
is  very  pregnant.  Pray,  rest  more  satisfied  with  the 
portion  of  learning  which  you  have  got,  and  disturb 
my  peaceful  ignorance  as  little  as  possible  with  such 
sort  of  commissions. 

"  Did  you  never  observe  an  appearance  well  known 
by  the  name  of  the  man  in  the  moon  ?  Some  scanda- 
lous old  maids  have  set  on  foot  a  report,  that  it  is 
Endymion. 

"  Your  theory  about  the  first  awkward  step  a  man 
makes  being  the  consequence  of  learning  to  dance,  is 
not  universal.  We  have  known  many  youths  bred 
up  at  Christ's,  who  never  learned  to  dance,  yet  the 
world  imputes  to  them  no  very  graceful  motions.  I 
remember  there  was  little  Hudson,  the  immortal  pre- 


LETTER   TO   WORDSWORTH.  135 

center  of  St.  Paul's,  to  teach  us  our  quavers ;  but,  to 
the  best  of  my  recollection,  there  was  no  master  of 
motions  when  we  were  at  Christ's. 

"  Farewell,'  in  haste. 

«C.  L." 

TO  MR.   WORDSWORTH. 

"  Oct.  13th,  1800. 

"  Dear  Wordsworth,  —  I  have  not  forgot  your  com- 
missions. But  the  truth  is,  —  and  why  should  I  not 
confess  it  ?  —  I  am  not  plethorically  abounding  in  cash 
at  this  present.  Merit,  God  knows,  is  very  little  re- 
warded ;  but  it  does  not  become  me  to  speak  of  my- 
self. My  motto  is,  '  contented  with  little,  yet  wish- 
ing for  more.'  Now,  the  books  you  wish  for  would 
require  some  pounds,  which,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  I  have 
not  by  me  ;  so,  I  will  say  at  once,  if  you  will  give  me 
a  draft  upon  your  town  banker  for  any  sum  you  pro- 
pose to  lay  out,  I  will  dispose  of  it  to  the  very  best  of 
my  skill  in  choice  old  books,  such  as  my  own  soul  lov- 
eth.  In  fact  I  have  been  waiting  for  the  liquidation  of 
a  debt  to  enable  myself  to  set  about  your  commission 
handsomely ;  for  it  is  a  scurvy  thing  to  cry,  '  Give  me 
the  money  first,'  and  I  am  the  first  of  the  family  of 
the  Lambs  that  have  done  it  for  many  centuries  ;  but 
the  debt  remains  as  it  was,  and  my  old  friend  that  I  ac- 
commodated has  generously  forgot  it !  The  books  which 
you  want,  I  calculate  at  about  SI.  Ben  Jonson  is  a 
guinea  book.  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  in  folio,  the 
right  folio  not  now  to  be  met  with ;  the  octavos  are 
about  3Z.  As  to  any  other  dramatists,  I  do  not  know 
where  to  find  them,  except  what  are  in  Dodsley's  Old 
Plays,  which  are  about  3^.  also.     Massinger  I  never 


136  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

saw  but  at  one  shop,  but  it  is  now  gone ;  but  one  of 
the  editions  of  Dodsley  contains  about  a  fourth  (the 
best)  of  his  plays.  Congreve,  and  the  rest  of  King 
Charles's  moralists,  are  cheap  and  accessible.  The 
works  on  Ireland  I  will  inquire  after,  but  I  fear,  Spen- 
ser's is  not  to  be  had  apart  from  his  poems ;  I  never 
saw  it.  But  you  may  depend  upon  my  sparing  no 
pains  to  furnish  you  as  complete  a  library  of  old  poets 
and  dramatists  as  will  be  prudent  to  buy ;  for,  I  suppose 
you  do  not  include  the  201.  edition  of  Hamlet,  single 
play,  which  Kemble  has.  Marlowe's  plays  and  poems 
are  totally  vanished ;  only  one  edition  of  Dodsley  re- 
tains one,  and  the  other  two  of  his  plays :  but  John 
Ford  is  the  man  after  Shakspeare.  Let  me  know  your 
will  and  pleasure  soon,  for  I  have  observed,  next  to  the 
pleasure  of  buying  a  bargain  for  one's  self,  is  the 
pleasure  of  persuading  a  friend  to  buy  it.  It  tickles 
one  with  the  image  of  an  imprudency,  without  the 
penalty  usually  annexed.  "  C.  Lamb." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

[1800.] 


LETTERS  TO  MANNING,  AFTER  LAMB  S  REMOVAL  TO  THE 

TEMPLE. 

In  the  year  1800,  Lamb  carried  into  effect  his  pur- 
pose of  removing  to  Mitre-court  Buildings,  Temple. 
During  this  time  he  wrote  only  a  few  small  poems, 


LETTEES  TO   MANNING.  137 

which  he  transmitted  to  Manning.  In  his  letters  to 
Manning  a  vein  of  wild  humor  breaks  out,  of  which 
there  are  but  slight  indications  in  the  correspondence 
with  his  more  sentimental  friends;  as  if  the  very  op- 
position of  Manning's  more  scientific  power  to  his  own 
force  of  s}Tnpathy  provoked  the  sallies  which  the  genial 
kindness  of  the  mathematician  fostered.  The  prodigal 
and  reckless  humor  of  some  of  these  letters  forais  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  deep  feehng  of  the  earlier  let- 
ters to  Coleridge.  His  '  Essays  of  Elia'  show  the  har- 
monious union  of  both.  The  following  letter  contains 
Lamb's  description  of  his  new  abode. 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  I  was  not  aware  that  you  owed  me  anything  be- 
side that  guinea  ;  but  I  dare  say  you  are  right.  I  live 
at  No.  16,  Mitre-court  Buildings,  a  pistol-shot  off  Baron 
Maseres'.  You  must  introduce  me  to  the  Baron.  I 
think  we  should  suit  one  another  mainly.  He  lives 
on  the  ground  floor,  for  convenience  of  the  gout ;  I 
prefer  the  attic  story,  for  the  air  !  He  keeps  three 
footmen  and  two  maids ;  I  have  neither  maid  nor  laun- 
dress, not  caring  to  be  troubled  with  them  !  His  forte, 
I  understand,  is  the  higher  mathematics  ;  my  turn,  I 
confess,  is  more  to  poetry  and  the  belles  lettres.  The 
very  antithesis  of  our  characters  would  make  up  a  har- 
mony. You  must  bring  the  Baron  and  me  together. 
—  N.  B.  when  you  come  to  see  me,  mount  up  to  the 
top  of  the  stairs  —  I  hope  you  are  not  asthmatical  — 
and  come  in  flannel,  for  it's  pure  airy  up  there.  And 
bring  your  glass,  and  I  will  show  you  the  Surrey  Hills. 
My  bed  faces  the  river,  so  as  by  perking  up  upon  my 


lo8  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

haunches,  and  supporting  my  carcass  with  my  elbows, 
without  much  wrying  my  neck,  I  can  see  the  white 
sails  glide  by  the  bottom  of  the  King's  Bench  walks 
as  I  lie  in  my  bed.  An  excellent  tiptoe  prospect  in 
the  best  room  :  —  casement  windows,  with  small  panes, 
to  look  more  like  a  cottage.  Mind,  I  have  got  no 
bed  for  you,  that's  flat ;  sold  it  to  pay  expenses  of 
moving.  The  very  bed  on  which  Manning  lay  ;  the 
friendly,  the  mathematical  Manning !  How  forcibly 
does  it  remind  me  of  the  interesting  Otway  !  '  The 
very  bed  which  on  thy  marriage  night  gave  thee  into 
the  arms  of  Belvidera,  by  the  coarse  hands  of  ruffi- 
ans — '  (upholsterers'  men,)  &c.  My  tears  will  not 
give  me  leave  to  go  on.  But  a  bed  I  will  get  you, 
Manning,  on  condition  you  will  be  my  day-guest. 

"  I  have  been  ill  more  than  a  month,  with  a  bad 
cold,  which  comes  upon  me  (like  a  murderer's  con- 
science) about  midnight,  and  vexes  me  for  many  hours. 
I  have  successively  been  drugged  with  Spanish  lic- 
orice, opium,  ipecacuanha,  paregoric,  and  tincture  of 
foxglove  (tinctura  purpuras  digitalis  of  the  ancients). 
I  am  afraid  I  must  leave  off  drinking." 

Lamb  then  gives  an  account  of  his  •visit  to  an  ex- 
hibition of  snakes  —  of  a  frightful  vividness  and  inter- 
esting—  as  all  details  of  these  fascinating  reptiles  are, 
whom  we  at  once  loathe  and  long  to  look  upon,  as 
the  old  enemies  and  tempters  of  our  race. 


LETTERS  TO   MANNING.  139 

TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  Oct.  16th,  1800. 
"  Dear  Manning,  —  Had  you  written  one  week  be- 
fore jou  did,  I  certainly  should  have  obeyed  your  in- 
junction ;  you  should  have  seen  me  before  my  letter. 
I  wiU  explain  to  you  my  situation.  There  are  six  of 
us  in  one  department.  Two  of  us  (within  these  four 
days)  are  confined  with  severe  fevers  ;  and  two  more, 
who  belong  to  the  Tower  Militia,  expect  to  have  march- 
ing orders  on  Friday.  Now  six  are  absolutely  neces- 
sary. I  have  already  asked  and  obtained  two  young 
hands  to  supply  the  loss  of  the  feverites.  And,  with 
the  other  prospect  befoi-e  me,  you  may  believe  I  cannot 
decently  ask  leave  of  absence  for  myself.  All  I  can 
promise,  (and  I  do  promise,  with  the  sincerity  of  Saint 
Peter,  and  the  contrition  of  sinner  Peter  if  I  fail) 
that  I  will  come  the  very  first  spare  weeTc^  and  go  no- 
where till  I  have  been  at  Cambridge.  No  matter  if  you 
are  in  a  state  of  pupilage  when  I  come  ;  for  I  can  em- 
ploy myself  in  Cambridge  very  pleasantly  in  the  morn- 
ings. Are  there  not  libraries,  halls,  colleges,  books, 
pictures,  statues?  I  wish  you  had  made  London  in 
your  way.  There  is  an  exhibition  quite  uncommon 
in  Europe,  which  could  not  have  escaped  your  genius^ 
—  a  live  rattlesnake,  ten  feet  in  length,  and  the  thick- 
ness of  a  big  leg.  I  went  to  see  it  last  night  by  can- 
dlelight. We  were  ushered  into  a  room  very  little 
bigger  than  ours  at  Pentonville.  A  man  and  woman 
and  four  boys  live  in  this  room,  joint  tenants  with  nine 
snakes,  most  of  them  such  as  no  remedy  has  been  dis- 
covered for  their  bite.  We  walked  into  the  middle, 
which  is  formed  by  a  half-moon  of  wired  boxes,  all 


140  LETTERS   TO  MANNING. 

mansions  of  snakes,  —  whip-snakes,  thunder-snakes,  pig- 
nose-snakes,  American  vipers,  and  tJds  monster.  He 
lies  curled  up  in  folds ;  and  immediately  a  stranger 
enters  (for  he  is  used  to  the  family,  and  sees  them  play 
at  cards,)  he  set  up  a  rattle  like  a  watchman's  in  Lon- 
don, or  near  as  loud,  and  reared  up  a  head,  from  the 
midst  of  these  folds,  like  a  toad,  and  shook  his  head, 
and  showed  every  sign  a  snake  can  show  of  irritation. 
I  had  the  foolish  curiosity  to  strike  the  wires  with  my 
finger,  and  the  devil  flew  at  me  with  his  toad-mouth 
wide  open  :  the  inside  of  his  mouth  is  quite  white.  I 
had  got  my  finger  away,  nor  could  he  well  have  bit 
me  with  his  big  mouth,  which  would  have  been  cer- 
tain death  in  five  minutes.  But  it  frightened  me  so 
much,  that  I  did  not  recover  my  voice  for  a. minute's 
space.  I  forgot,  in  my  fear,  that  he  was  secured. 
You  would  have  forgot  too,  for  'tis  incredible  how 
such  a  monster  can  be  confined  in  small  gauzy-looking 
wires.  I  dreamed  of  snakes  in  the  night.  I  wish  to 
heaven  you  could  see  it.  He  absolutely  swelled  with 
passion  to  the  bigness  of  a  large  thigh.  I  could  not 
retreat  without  infringing  on  another  box,  and  just 
behind,  a  little  devil  not  an  inch  from  my  back,  had 
got  his  nose  out,  with  some  difficulty  and  pain,  quite 
through  the  bars  !  He  was  soon  taught  better  man- 
ners. All  the  snakes  were  curious,  and  objects  of 
terror :  but  this  monster,  like  Aaron's  serpent,  swal- 
lowed up  the  impression  of  the  rest.  He  opened  his 
cursed  mouth,  when  he  made  at  me,  as  wide  as  his 
head  was  broad.  I  hallooed  out  quite  loud,  and  felt 
pains  all  over  my  body  with  the  fright. 

"  I  have  had  the  felicity  of  hearing  George  Dyer 
read  out  one  book  of  '  The  Farmer's  Boy.'     I  thought 


LETTERS  TO  MANNING.  141 

it  rather  childisli.  No  doubt,  there  is  originality  in  it, 
(which,  in  your  self-taught  geniuses,  is  a  most  rare 
quality,  they  generally  getting  hold  of  some  bad  mod- 
els, in  a  scarcity  of  books,  and  forming  their  taste  on 
them,)  but  no  selection.  All  is  described. 
"  Mind,  I  have  only  heard  read  one  book. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"  Philo-Snake, 

"  C.  L." 

The  following  are  fragments  from  a  letter  chiefly  on 
personal  matters,  the  interest  of  which  is  gone  by  :  — 


TO  MR.   MANNING. 

"  And  now,  when  shall  I  catch  a  glimpse  of  your 
honest  face-to-face  countenance  again?  Your  fine 
dogmatical^  sceptical  face  by  punch-light  ?  O !  one 
glimpse  of  the  human  face,  and  shake  of  the  human 
hand,  is  better  than  whole  reams  of  this  cold,  thin  cor- 
respondence ;  yea,  of  more  worth  than  all  the  letters 
that  have  sweated  the  fingers  of  sensibility,  from  Ma- 
dame S^viffn^  and  Balzac  to  Sterne  and  Shenstone. 

"  Coleridge  is  settled  with  his  wife  and  the  young 
philosopher  at  Keswick,  with  the  Wordsworths.  They 
have  contrived  to  spawn  a  new  volume  of  lyrical  bal- 
lads, which  is  to  see  the  light  in  about  a  month,  and 
causes  no  little  excitement  in  the  literary  world. 
George  Dyer  too,  that  good-natured  heathen,  is  more 
than  nine  months  gone  with  his  twin  volumes  of  ode, 
pastoral,  sonnet,  elegy,  Spenserian,  Horatian,  Akensid- 
ish,  and  Masonic  verse  —  Clio  prosper  the  birth  !  it  will 
be  twelve  shillings  out  of  somebody's  pocket.     I  find 


142  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

he  means  to  exclude  '  personal  satire,'  so  it  appears  by 
his  truly  original  advertisement.  Well,  God  put  it  into 
the  hearts  of  the  English  gentry  to  come  in  shoals 
and  subscribe  to  his  poems,  for  He  never  put  a  kinder 
heart  into  flesh  of  man  than  George  Dyer's ! 
"  Now  farewell,  for  dinner  is  at  hand. 

«C.  L." 

Lamb  had  engaged  to  spend  a  few  days  when  he 
could  obtain  leave,  with  Manning  at  Cambridge,  and, 
just  as  he  hoped  to  accomplish  his  wish,  received  an 
invitation  from  Lloyd  to  give  his  holiday  to  the  poets 
assembled  at  the  Lakes.  In  the  joyous  excitement 
of  spirits  which  the  anticipated  visit  to  Manning  pro- 
duced, he  thus  plays  off  Manning's  proposal  on  his 
friend,  abuses  mountains  and  luxuriates  in  his  love 
of  London :  — 

TO  MR.   MANNING. 

"  Dear  Manning,  —  I  have  received  a  very  kind 
invitation  from  Lloyd  and  Sophia,  to  go  and  spend  a 
month  with  them  at  the  Lakes.  Now  it  fortunately 
happens,  (which  is  so  seldom  the  case !)  that  I  have 
spare  cash  by  me,  enough  to  answer  the  expenses  of 
so  long  a  journey  ;  and  I  am  determined  to  get  away 
from  the  office  by  some  means.  The  purpose  of  this 
letter  is  to  request  of  you  (my  dear  friend),  that  you 
will  not  take  it  unkind,  if  I  decline  my  proposed  visit 
to  Cambridge  for  the  present.  Perhaps  I  shall  be  able 
to  take  Cambridge  m  my  way^  going  or  coming.  I 
need  not  describe  to  you  the  expectations  which  such 
an  one  as  myself,  pent  up  all  my  life  in  a  dirty  city, 
have  formed  of  a  tour  to  the  Lakes.     Consider  Gras- 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  143 

mere !  Ambleside  I  Wordsworth !  Colerido;e  !  Hills, 
woods,  lakes,  and  mountains,  to  the  eternal  devil.  I 
will  eat  snipes  with  thee,  Thomas  Manning.  Only 
confess,  confess,  a  bite. 

"  P.  S.  I  think  you  named  the  16th ;  but  was  it 
not  modest  of  Lloyd  to  send  such  an  invitation  !  It 
shows  his  knowledge  of  money  and  time.  I  would  be 
loth  to  think  he  meant 

'  Ironic  satire  sidelong  sklented 
On  my  poor  pursie.'  —  Burns. 

For  my  part,  with  reference  to  my  friends  northward, 
I  must  confess  that  I  am  not  romance-bit  about  Nature. 
The  earth,  and  sea,  and  sky  (when  all  is  said),  is  but 
as  a  house  to  dwell  in.  If  the  inmates  be  courteous, 
and  good  liquors  flow  like  the  conduits  at  an  old  cor- 
onation, if  they  can  talk  sensibly,  and  feel  properly,  I 
have  no  need  to  stand  staring  upon  the  gilded  look- 
ing-glass (that  strained  my  friend's  purse-strings  in 
the  purchase),  nor  his  five-shilling  print  over  the 
mantel-piece  of  old  Nabbs  the  carrier  (which  only  be- 
trays his  false  taste).  Just  as  important  to  me  (in  a 
sense),  is  all  the  furniture  of  my  world ;  eye-pam- 
pering, but  satisfies  no  heart.  Streets,  streets,  streets, 
markets,  theatres,  churches,  Covent  Gardens,  shops 
sparkling  with  pretty  faces  of  industrious  milliners, 
neat  sempstresses,  ladies  cheapening,  gentlemen  be- 
hind counters  lying,  authors  in  the  street  with  spec- 
tacles, George  Dyers  (you  may  know  them  by  their 
gait),  lamps  lit  at  night,  pastry-cooks'  and  silversmiths' 
shops,  beautiful  Quakers  of  Pentonville,  noise  of  coach- 
es, drowsy  cry  of  mechanic  watchmen  at  night,  with 
bucks  reeling  home  drunk ;  if  you  happen  to  wake 
at   midnight,   cries   of  Fire  and  Stop  thief;   inns  of 


144  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

court,  with  their  learned  air,  and  lialls,  and  butteries, 
just  like  Cambridge  colleges ;  old  book-stalls,  '  Jeremy 
Taylors,'  '  Burtons  on  Melancholy,'  and  '  Religio  Me- 
dicis,'  on  every  stall.  These  are  thy  pleasures,  O 
London !    with-the-many-sins.     O,  city,  abounding  in 

,  for   these   may  Keswick  and  her   giant   brood 

go  hang!  C.  L." 

On  this  occasion  Lamb  was  disappointed :  but  he 
was  consoled  by  the  acquisition  of  a  new  friend,  in 
Mr.  Rickman  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  exults 
in  a  strain  which  he  never  had  reason  to  regret. 
This  piece  of  rare  felicity  enabled  him  even  to  bear 
the  loss  of  his  manuscripts,  and  the  delay  of  his 
hopes ;  which,  according  to  the  old  theatrical  usage, 
he  was  destined  to  endure. 


TO   MR.  MANNING. 

"  Nov.  3rd,  1800. 
"  Ecquid  meditatur  Archimedes  ?  What  is  Euclid 
doing?  What  hath  happened  to  learned  Trismegist? 
—  doth  he  take  it  in  ill  part,  that  his  humble  friend 
did  not  comply  with  his  courteous  invitation  ?  Let 
it  suffice,  I  could  not  come  —  are  impossibilities  noth- 
ing?—  be  they  abstractions  of  the  intellect?  —  or  not 
(rather)  most  sharp  and  mortifying  realities?  nuts  in 
the  Will's  mouth  too  hard  for  her  to  crack  ?  brick 
and  stone  walls  in  her  way,  which  she  can  by  no 
means  eat  through  ?  sore  lets,  impedimenta  viarum,  no 
thoroughfares  ?  racemi  nimium  alte  pendentes  ?  Is  the 
phrase  classic  ?  I  allude  to  the  grapes  in  ^sop,  which 
cost  the  fox  a  strain,  and  gained  the  world  an  apho- 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  145 

rism.     Observe  the  superscription   of  this  letter.     In 
adapting  the  size  of  the  letters,  which  constitute  your 
name  and  Mr.   CHsp's   name  respectively,   I  had  an 
eye  to  your  different  stations  in  life.     'Tis  truly  cu- 
rious, and  must  be  soothing  to  an  aristocrat.     I  won- 
der  it   has   never    been   hit   on   before    my   time.     I 
have  made  an  acquisition  latterly  of  a  pleasant  hand^ 
one  Rickman,  to  whom  I  was  introduced  by  George 
Dyer,  not  the  most  flattering  auspices    under  whicli 
one    man    can    be    introduced    to    another  —  George 
brings  all  sorts  of  people  together,  setting  up  a  sort 
of  agrarian  law,   or  common  property,   in  matter  of 
society ;  but  for  once  he  has  done  me  a  great  pleas- 
ure, while  he  was  only  pursuing  a  principle,  as  ignes 
fatui  may  light  you  home.     This  Rickman  lives  in 
our  Buildings,   immediately  opposite    our  house ;    the 
finest   fellow  to   di-op  in  a'nights,  about  nine   or  ten 
o'clock  —  cold    bread-and-cheese    time  —  just    in    the 
wishing  time  of  the  night,  when  you  wish  for  some- 
body to  come  in,  without  a  distinct  idea  of  a  probable 
anybody.     Just  in   the  nick,  neither  too  early  to  be 
tedious,  nor   too  late    to  sit  a  reasonable    time.     He 
is  a  most  pleasant  hand  ;   a  fine  rattling  fellow,  has 
gone  through  life  laughing  at  solemn  apes; — himself 
hugely  literate,  oppressively  full  of  information  in  all 
stuff"  of  conversation,   from  matter  of  fact  to   Xeno- 
phon  and  Plato  —  can  talk  Greek  with  Porson,  pol- 
itics  with    Thelwall,    conjecture   with    George    Dyer, 
nonsense    with   me,   and   anything   with   anybody ;    a 
great  farmer,  somewhat  concerned  in  an  agricultural 
magazine  —  reads  no  poetry  but  Shakspeare,  very  in- 
timate with  Southey,  but  never  reads  his  poetry,  rel- 
ishes   George    Dyer,   thoroughly  penetrates   into    the 

VOL.    I.  10 


146  LETTERS   TO  MANNING. 

ridiculous  wherever  found,  understands  the  first  time 
(a  great  desideratum  in  common  minds)  —  you  need 
never  twice  speak  to  him ;  does  not  want  explana- 
tions, translations,  limitations,  as  Professor  Godwin 
does  when  you  make  an  assertion  ;  up  to  anything ; 
down  to  everything ;  whatever  sapit  hominem.  A 
perfect  man.  All  this  farrago,  which  must  perplex 
you  to  read,  and  has  put  me  to  a  little  trouble  to 
select  I  only  proves  how  impossible  it  is  to  describe  a 
pleasant  hand.  You  must  see  Rickman  to  know  him, 
for  he  is  a  species  in  one.  A  new  class.  An  exotic, 
any  slip  of  which  I  am  proud  to  put  in  my  garden- 
pot.  The  clearest-headed  fellow.  Fullest  of  matter, 
with  least  verbosity.  If  there  be  any  alloy  in  my  for- 
tune to  have  met  with  such  a  man,  it  is  that  he  com- 
monly divides  his  time  between  town  and  country, 
having  some  foolish  family  ties  at  Christ-church,  by 
which  means  he  can  only  gladden  our  London  hem- 
isphere with  returns  of  light.  He  is  now  going  for 
six  weeks." 

"  At  last  I  have  written  to  Kemble,  to  know  the 
event  of  my  play,  which  was  presented  last  Christmas. 
As  I  suspected,  came  an  answer  back  that  the  copy 
was  lost,  and  could  not  be  found- — no  hint  that  any- 
body had  to  this  day  ever  looked  into  it,  with  a  courte- 
ous (reasonable !)  request  of  another  copy  (if  I  had 
one  by  me),  and  a  promise  of  a  definitive  answer  in  a 
week.  I  could  not  resist  so  facile  and  moderate  de- 
mand, so  scribbled  out  another,  omitting  sundry  things, 
such  as  the  witch  story,  about  half  of  the  forest  scene 
(which  is/oo  leisurely  for  story),  and  transposing  that 
soliloquy  about  England  getting  drunk,  which,  like  its 


LETTERS  TO   MANNING.  147 

reciter,  stupidly  stood  alone,  nothing  prevenient  or 
antevenient  —  and  cleared  away  a  good  deal  besides, 
and  sent  this  copy,  written  all  out  (with  alterations, 
&c.,  requiring  judgment)  in  one  day  and  a  half!  I 
sent  it  last  night,  and  am  in  weekly  expectation  of  the 
toUing-bell,  and  death-waiTant. 

"  This  is  all  my  London  news.  Send  me  some  from 
the  bayiks  of  Cam,  as  the  poets  dehght  to  speak,  espe- 
cially George  Dyer,  who  has  no  other  name,  nor  idea, 
nor  definition  of  Cambridge,  —  namely,  its  being  a 
market-town,  sending  members  to  Parhament,  never 
entered  into  his  definition  —  it  was  and  is,  simply,  the 
banks  of  the  Cam,  or  the  fair  Cam ;  as  Oxford  is  the 
banks  of  the  Isis,  or  the  fair  Isis.  Yours  in  all  humil- 
ity, most  illustrious  Trismegist, 

"  C.  Lamb. 

"  (Read  on,  there's  more  at  the  bottom.) 

"  You  ask  me  about  the  '  Farmer's  Boy  ' —  don't 
you  think  the  fellow  who  wrote  it  (who  is  a  shoe- 
maker) has  a  poor  mind  ?  Don't  you  find  he  is  always 
silly  about  poor  €files,  and  those  abject  kind  of  phrases, 
which  mark  a  man  that  looks  up  to  wealth  ?  None  of 
Bums's  poet  dignity.  What  do  you  think  ?  I  have 
just  opened  him,  but  he  makes  me  sick." 

Constant  to  the  fame  of  Jem  White,  Lamb  did  not 
fail  to  enhst  Mannino;  among;  the  admirers  of  the 
"  FalstafTs  Letters."  The  next  letter,  referring  to 
them  is,  however,  more  interesting  for  the  light  which 
it  casts  on  Lamb's  indifference  to  the  pohtics  of  the 
time,  and  fond  devotion  to  the  past. 


148  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 


TO  MR.   MANNING. 

"  I  hope  by  this  time  you  are  prepared  to  say  the 
'  Falstaff 's  Letters '  are  a  bundle  of  the  sharpest,  queer- 
est, profoundest  humors,  of  any  these  juice-drained  lat- 
ter times  have  spawned.  I  should  have  advertised  you 
that  the  meaning  is  frequently  hard  to  be  got  at ;  and 
so  are  the  future  guineas,  that  now  lie  ripening  and 
aurifying  in  the  womb  of  some  undiscovered  Potosi ; 
but  dig,  dig,  dig,  dig,  Manning  !  I  set  to,  with  an  un- 
conquerable propulsion  to  write  with  a  lamentable  want 
of  what  to  write.  My  private  goings-on  are  orderly  as 
the  movements  of  the  spheres,  and  stale  as  their  music 
to  angels'  ears.  Pubhc  affairs  —  except  as  they  touch 
upon  me,  and  so  turn  into  private,  —  I  cannot  whip  up 
my  mind  to  feel  any  interest  in.  I  grieve,  indeed,  that 
War,  and  Nature,  and  Mr.  Pitt,  that  hangs  up  in 
Lloyd's  best  parlor,  should  have  conspired  to  call  up 
three  necessaries,  simple  commoners  as  our  fathers 
knew  them,  into  the  upper  house  of  luxuries ;  bread 
and  beer,  and  coals,  Manning.  But  as  to  France 
and  Frenchmen,  and  the  Abb^  Sieyes  and  his  constitu- 
tions, I  cannot  make  these  present  times  present  to  me. 
I  read  histories  of  the  past,  and  I  live  in  them  ;  al- 
though, to  abstract  senses,  they  are  far  less  momen- 
tous, than  the  noises  which  keep  Europe  awake.  I 
am  reading  '  Burnet's  own  Times.'  Did  you  ever 
read  that  garrulous,  pleasant  history?  He  tells  his 
story  like  an  old  man  past  political  service,  bragging  to 
his  sons  on  winter  evenings  of  the  part  he  took  in  pub- 
lic transactions,  when  '  his  old  cap  was  new.'  Full  of 
scandal,  which  all  true  history  is.     No  palhatives ;  but 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  149 

all  the  stark  wickedness  that  actually  gives  the  momen- 
tum to  national  actors.  Quite  the  prattle  of  age,  and 
out-hved  importance.  Truth  and  sincerity  staring  out 
upon  you  perpetually  in  alto-relievo.  Himself  a  party 
man  —  he  makes  you  a  party  man.  None  of  the 
cursed  pliilosophical  Humeian  indifference,  so  cold,  and 
unnatural  and  inhuman  !  None  of  the  cursed  Gibbon- 
ian  fine  writing,  so  fine  and  composite.  None  of  Dr. 
Robertson's  periods  with  three  members.  None  of 
Mr.  Roscoe's  sage  remarks,  all  so  apposite,  and  coming 
in  so  clever,  lest  the  reader  should  have  had  the  trouble 
of  drawing  an  inference.  Burnet's  good  old  prattle,  I 
can  bring  present  to  my  mind ;  I  can  make  the  revolu- 
tion present  to  me  —  the  French  revolution,  by  a  con- 
verse perversity  in  my  nature,  I  fling  as  far  from  me. 
To  quit  this  tiresome  subject,  and  to  relieve  you  from 
two  or  three  dismal  yawns,  which  I  hear  in  spirit,  I 
here  conclude  my  more  than  commonly  obtuse  letter ; 
dull,  up  to  the  duhiess  of  a  Dutch  commentator  on 
Shakspeare. 

"  My  love  to  Lloyd  and  to  Sophia. 

"C.  L." 

While  Lamb's  dramatic  destinies  were  in  suspense, 
he  was  called  on  "to  assist"  at  the  production  of  a 
tragedy,  by  a  friend,  whose  more  mature  reputation 
gave  him  readier  access  to  the  manager,  but  who  had 
no  better  claim  to  success  than  himself.  Mr.  Godwin, 
whose  powerful  romance  of  Caleb  Williams  had  sup- 
plied tlie  materials  for  "the  Iron  Chest"  of  Colman, 
naturally  aspired,  on  his  own  account,  to  the  glory  of 
the  scene,  and  completed  a  tragedy  under  the  title  of 
"  Antonio,  or  the  Soldier's  Return,"  which  was  ac- 


150  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

cepted  at  Druiy-Lane  Theatre,  and  announced  for 
representation  on  Saturday  the  13th  December  in  this 
year.  Lamb  supplied  the  epilogue,  which  he  copied 
in  the  following  letter,  addressed  to  Manning  on  the 
eventful  day  :  — 

TO  MB.  MANNING. 

"Dec.  13th,  1800. 

"  I  have  received  your  letter  this  moment,  not  hav- 
ing been  at  the  office.  I  have  just  time  to  scribble 
down  the  epilogue.  To  your  epistle  I  will  just  reply, 
that  I  will  certainly  come  to  Cambridge  before  Janu- 
ary is  out :  I'll  come  when  I  can.  You  shall  have  an 
emended  copy  of  my  play  early  next  week.  Mary 
thanks  you  ;  but  her  handwriting  is  too  feminine  to 
be  exposed  to  a  Cambridge  gentleman,  though  I  en- 
deavor to  persuade  her  that  you  understand  algebra, 
and  must  understand  her  hand.  The  play  is  the  man's 
you  wot  of;  but  for  Heaven's  sake  do  not  mention  it 
—  it  is  to  come  out  in  a  feigned  name,  as  one  To- 
bin's.  I  will  omit  the  introductory  Hues  which  con- 
nect it  with  the  play,  and  give  you  the  concluding 
tale,  which  is  the  mass  and  bulk  of  the  epilogue.  The 
name  is  Jack  Incident.  It  is  about  promise-breaking 
— you  will  see  it  all,  if  you  read  the  papers. 

Jack,  of  dramatic  genius  justly  vain, 
Purchased  a  renter's  share  at  Drury-lane; 
A  prudent  man  in  every  other  matter. 
Known  at  his  club-room  for  an  honest  hatter; 
Humane  and  courteous,  led  a  civil  life. 
And  has  been  seldom  known  to  beat  his  wife; 
But  Jack  is  now  grown  quite  another  man, 
Frequents  the  green-room,  knows  the  plot  and  plan 

Of  each  new  piece. 
And  has  been  seen  to  talk  with  Sheridan ! 


GODWIN.  151 

In  at  the  playhouse  just  at  six  he  pops, 

And  never  quits  it  till  the  curtain  drops, 

Is  never  absent  on  the  author^s  night, 

Knows  actresses  and  actors  too  —  by  sight; 

So  humble,  that  with  Suett  he'll  confer, 

Or  take  a  pipe  with  plain  Jack  Bannister; 

Nay,  with  an  author  has  been  known  so  free 

He  once  suggested  a  catastrophe  — 

In  short,  John  dabbled  till  his  head  was  turn'd: 

His  wife  remonstrated,  his  neighbors  mourn'd, 

■His  customers  were  dropping  off  apace, 

And  Jack's  affairs  began  to  wear  a  piteous  face. 

One  night  his  wife  began  a  curtain  lecture; 
'  My  dearest  Johnny,  husband,  spouse,  protector, 
Take  pity  on  your  helpless  babes  and  me. 
Save  us  from  ruin,  you  from  bankruptcy  — » 
Look  to  your  business,  leave  these  cursed  plays, 
And  try  again  your  old  industrious  ways.' 

Jack,  who  was  always  scared  at  the  Gazette, 
And  had  some  bits  of  scull  uninjured  yet. 
Promised  amendment,  vow'd  his  wife  spake  reason, 
'  He  would  not  see  another  play  that  season  — ' 

Three  stubborn  fortnights  Jack  his  promise  kept, 
Was  late  and  early  in  his  shop,  eat,  slept, 
And  walk'd  and  talk'd  like  ordinary  men; 
No  wit,  but  John  the  hatter  once  again  — 
Visits  his  club :  when  lo !  one  fatal  night 
His  wife  with  horror  view'd  the  well-known  sight  — 
John's  hat,  img,  snuffbox  —  well  she  knew  his  tricks  — 
And  Jack  decamping  at  the  hour  of  six. 
Just  at  the  counter's  edge  a  playbill  lay, 
Announcing  that  '  Pizarro  '  was  the  play  — 
'  0  Johnny,  Johnny,  this  is  your  old  doing.' 
Quoth  Jack,  '  Why  what  the  devil  storm's  a-brewingV 
About  a  harmless  play  why  all  this  fright  ? 
I'll  go  and  see  it,  if  it's  but  for  spite  — 
Zounds,  woman !     Nelson's  *  to  be  there  to-night.* 

"  N.  B.  —  This  was  intended  for  Jack  Bannister  to 
speak ;  but  the  sage  managers  have  chosen  Miss  Heard^ 
except  Miss  Tidswell,  the  worst  actress  ever  seen  or 
heard.     Now,  I  remember  I  have  promised  the  loan  of 

*  "  A  good  clap-trap.     Nelson  has  exhibited  two  or  three  times  at  both 
theatres  —  and  advertised  himself." 


152  GODWIN. 

my  play.     I  will  lend  it  instantly,  and  you  shall  get 
it  ('pon  honor  !)  by  this  day  week. 

"  I  must  go  and  dress  for  the  boxes  !  First  night ! 
Finding  I  have  time,  I  transcribe  the  rest.  Observe, 
you  have  read  the  last  first ;  it  begins  thus :  —  The 
names  I  took  from  a  little  outline  G.  gave  me.  I 
have  not  read  the  play  ! 

'  Ladies,  ye've  seen  how  Guzman's  consort  died, 
Poor  victim  of  a  Spaniard  brother's  pride, 
When  Spanish  honor  through  the  world  was  blown, 
And  Spanish  beauty  for  the  best  was  known.* 
In  that  romantic  uuenlighteu'd  time, 
A  breach  of  promise  t  was  a  sort  of  crime  — 
Which  of  you  handsome  English  ladies  here, 
But  deems  the  penance  bloody  and  severe  ? 
A  whimsical  old  Saragossa  \  fashion, 
That  a  dead  father's  dying  inclination, 
Should  live  to  thwart  a  living  daughter's  passion,  § 
Unjustly  on  the  sex  we  \\  men  exclaim, 
Bail  at  your*^  vices, —  and  commit  the  same;  — 
Man  is  a  promise-breaker  from  the  womb, 
And  goes  a  promise-breaker  to  the  tomb  — 
What  need  we  instance  here  the  lover's  vow, 
The  sick  man's  purpose,  or  the  great  man's  bow?** 
The  truth  by  few  examples  best  is  shown  — 
Instead  of  many  which  are  better  known, 
Take  poor  Jack  Incident,  that's  dead  and  gone. 
Jack,  &c.  &c.  &c.' 

"  Now  you  have  it  all  —  how  do  you  hke  it  ?  I  am 
going  to  hear  it  recited  !  !  ! 

«  C.  L." 

Alas  for  human  hopes !  The  play  was  decisively 
damned,  and  the  epilogue  shared  its  fate.  The  tragedy 
tiu'ned  out  a  miracle  of  dulness  for  the  world  to  won- 

*  "  Four  easy  lines."  t  "  For  which  the  heroine  died." 

X  "  In  Spain  !  !  "  §  "  Two  neat  lines."  ||  "  Or  yow." 

T[  "  Or  our,  as  (hey  have  altered  it."  **  "  Antithesis ! !  " 


GODWIN.  153 

der  at,  although  Lamb  alwavs  insisted  it  had  one  fine 
line,  which  he  was  fond  of  repeating  —  sole  relic  of  the 
else  forgotten  play.  Kemble  and  Mrs.  Siddons,  the 
brother  and  sister  of  the  drama,  toiled  through  four 
acts  and  a  half  without  applause  or  disapprobation  ; 
one  speech  was  not  more  vapid  than  another ;  and  so 
dead  was  the  level  of  the  dialogue,  that,  although  its 
destiny  was  seen  from  afar,  it  presented  no  opportunity 
for  hissing.  But  as  the  play  drew  towards  a  close, 
when,  after  a  scene  of  fi'igid  chiding  not  vivified  by 
any  fire  of  Kemble's  own,  Antonio  drew  his  sword  and 
plunged  it  into  the  heroine's  bosom,  the  "  sad  civility  " 
of  the  audience  vanished,  they  started  as  at  a  real  mur- 
der, and  hooted  the  actors  from  the  stage.  "  Philoso- 
phy," which  could  not  "  make  a  Juliet,"  sustained  the 
author  through  the  trial.  He  sat  on  one  of  the  front 
benches  of  the  pit,  unmoved  amidst  the  storm.  When 
the  first  act  passed  off  without  a  hand,  he  expressed 
his  satisfaction  at  the  good  sense  of  the  house  ;  "  the 
proper  season  of  applause  had  hot  arrived  ; "  all  was 
exactly  as  it  should  be.  The  second  act  proceeded  to 
its  close  in  the  same  uninterrupted  calm  ;  his  friends 
became  uneasy,  but  still  his  optimism  prevailed  ;  he 
could  afford  to  wait.  And  though  he  did  at  last  ad- 
mit  the  great  movement  was  somewhat  tardy,  and 
that  the  audience  seemed  rather  patient  than  interests 
ed,  he  did  not  lose  his  confidence  till  the  tiunult  arose, 
and  then  he  submitted  with  quiet  dignity  to  the  fate  of 
genius,  too  lofty  to  be  understood  by  a  world  as  yet  in 
its  childhood  !  Notwithstanding  this  rude  repulse,  Mr. 
Godwin  retained  his  taste  for  the  theatre  to  the  last. 
On  every  first  night  of  a  new  piece,  whether  tragedy, 
:;omedy,  or  farce,  whether  of  friend  or  foe,  he  sat  with 


154  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

gentle  Interest  in  a  side-box,  and  bore  its  fate,  what- 
ever it  might  be,  with  resignation,  as  he  had  done  his 
own.  The  following  is  Lamb's  account  of  the  catas- 
trophe rendered  to  Manning,  in  which  the  facetious 
charge  against  the  unlucky  author  of  "  Violent  and 
Satanical  Pride  of  Heart,"  has  reference  to  some  ban- 
ter which  Lamb  had  encountered  among  his  friends 
by  the  purposed  title  of  his  own  play,  "  Pride's  Cure," 
and  his  disquisition  in  its  defence. 


TO  MR.   MANNING. 

"  Dec.  16th,  1800. 

"  We  are  damned  !  —  Not  the  facetious  epilogue  it>- 
self  could  save  us.  For,  as  the  editor  of  the  '  Morning 
Post,'  quick-sighted  gentleman  !  hath  this  morning  tru- 
ly observed  (I  beg  pardon  if  I  falsify  his  words,  their 
profound  sense  I  am  sure  I  retain),  both  prologue  and 
epilogue  were  worthy  of  accompanying  such  a  piece  ; 
and  indeed  (mark  the  profundity,  Mr.  Manning)  were 
received  with  proper  indignation  by  such  of  the  audi- 
ence only  as  thought  either  worth  attending  to.  Pro- 
fessor, thy  glories  wax  dim  !  Again,  the  incompara- 
ble author  of  the  '  True  Briton '  declareth  in  his  paper 
(bearing  same  date)  that  the  epilogue  was  an  indiffer- 
ent attempt  at  humor  and  character,  and  failed  in  both. 
I  forbear  to  mention  the  other  papers,  because  I  have 
not  read  them.  O  Professor,  how  different  thy  feel- 
ings now  (quantum  mutatus  ab  illo  professore,  qui  in 
agris  philosophiae  tantas  victorias  acquisivisti),  —  how 
different  thy  proud  feelings  but  one  little  week  ago,  — 
thy  anticipation  of  thy  nine  nights,  —  those  visionary 
claps,  which  have  soothed  thy  soul  by  day,  and  thy 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  155 

dreams  by  night !  Calling  in  accidentally  on  the  Pro- 
fessor while  he  was  out,  I  was  ushered  into  the  study  ; 
and  my  nose  quickly  (most  sagacious  always)  pointed 
me  to  four  tokens  lying  loose  upon  thy  table,  Profes- 
sor, which  indicated  thy  violent  and  satanical  pride  of 
heart.  Imprimis,  there  caught  mine  eye  a  list  of  six 
persons,  thy  friends,  whom  thou  didst  meditate  invit- 
ing to  a  smnptuous  dinner  on  the  Thursday,  antici- 
pating the  profits  of  thy  Saturday's  play  to  answer 
charges ;  I  was  in  the  honored  file  I  Next,  a  stronger 
evidence  of  thy  violent  and  almost  satanical  pride,  lay 
a  list  of  all  the  morning  papers  (from  the  '  Morning 
Chronicle'  downwards  to  the  'Porcupine'),  with  the 
places  of  their  respective  offices,  where  thou  wast  med- 
itating to  insert,  and  didst  insert,  an  elaborate  sketch 
of  the  story  of  thy  play ;  stones  in  thy  enemy's  hand 
to  bruise  thee  with,  and  severely  wast  thou  bruised,  O 
Professor  !  nor  do  I  know  what  oil  to  pour  into  thy 
wounds.  Next,  which  convinced  me  to  a  dead  con- 
viction, of  thy  pride,  violent  and  almost  satanical  pride 
—  lay  a  list  of  books,  which  thy  un-tragedy-favored 
pocket  could  never  answer  ;  Dodsley's  Old  Plays,  Ma- 
lone's  Shakspeare  (still  harping  upon  thy  play,  thy 
philosophy  abandoned  meanwhile  to  christians  and  su- 
perstitious minds)  ;  nay,  I  believe  (if  I  can  believe  my 
memory),  that  the  ambitious  Encyclopedia  itself  was 
part  of  thy  meditated  acquisitions  ;  but  many  a  play- 
book  was  there.  All  these  visions  are  damned;  and 
thou.  Professor,  must  read  Shakspeare  in  future  out 
of  a  common  edition  ;  and  hark  ye,  pray  read  him  to 
a  httle  better  purpose !  Last  and  strongest  against 
thee  (in  colors  manifest  as  the  hand  upon  Belshaz- 
zar's  wall),  lay  a  volume  of  poems  by  C.  Lloyd  and 


156  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

C.  Lamb.     Thy  heart  misgave  thee,  that  thy  assistant 
might  possibly  not  have  talent  enough  to  furnish  thee 
an  epilogue  !     Manning,   all   these  things   came   over 
my  mind ;  all  the  gratulations  that  would  have  thick- 
ened upon  him,   and  even   some  have  glanced   aside 
upon  his  humble  friend ;  the  vanity,   and   the   fame, 
and  the  profits  (the  Professor  is  5001.  ideal  money  out 
of  pocket  by  this  failure,  besides  2001.  he  would  have 
got  for  the  copyright,  and  the  Professor  is  never  much 
beforehand  with  the  world  ;  what  he  gets  is  all  by  the 
sweat  of  his  brow  and  dint  of  brain,  for  the  Profes- 
sor, though  a  sure  man,  is  also  a  slow)  ;  and  now  to 
muse   upon    thy   altered   physiognomy,   thy   pale   and 
squalid  appearance  (a  kind  of  blue  sickness  about  the 
eyelids),  and  thy  crest  fallen,  and  thy  proud  demand 
of  200?.  from  thy  bookseller  changed  to  an  imcertain- 
ty  of  his  taking  it  at  all,  or  giving  thee  full  501.     The 
Professor  has  won  my  heart  by  this  his  moumfiil  ca- 
tastrophe.    You  remember  Marshall,  who  dined  with 
him  at  my  house  ;  I  met  him  in  the  lobby  immediately 
after  the   damnation  of  the  Professor's  play,  and   he 
looked  to  me  hke  an  angel ;  his  face  was  lengthened, 
and  all  over  perspiration  ;  I  never  saw  such  a  care- 
fraught  visage ;  I  could  have  hugged  him,  I  loved  him 
so    intensely.     '  From  every  pore  of  him  a   perfume 
fell.'     I  have  seen  that  man  in  many  situations,  and, 
from  my  soul,  I  think  that  a  more  godlike  honest  soul 
exists  not  in  this  world.     The  Professor's  poor  nerves 
trembhng  with  the  recent  shock,  he  hurried  him  away 
to  my  house  to  supper,  and  there  we  comforted  him 
as  well  as  we  could.     He  came  to  consult  me  about 
a  change  of  catastrophe  ;  but  alas  I  the  piece  was  con- 
demned long  before  that  crisis.     I  at  first   humored 


LETTERS   TO   MANTSflNG.  157 

him  with  a  specious  proposition,  but  have  since  joined 
his  true  friends  in  advising  him  to  give  it  up.  He 
did  it  with  a  pang,  and  is  to  print  it  as  his. 

"  L." 

In  another  letter,  a  few  days  after.  Lamb  thus  re- 
curs to  the  subject,  and  closes  the  century  in  antici- 
pation of  a  visit  to  his  friend  at  Cambridge. 


TO   MR.  MANNING. 

"  Dec.  27th,  1800. 

"  As  for  the  other  Professor,  he  has  actually  begun 
to  dive  into  Tavemier  and  Chardin's  Persian  Travels 
for  a  story,  to  form  a  new  drama  for  the  sweet  tooth 
of  this  fastidious  age.  Hath  not  Betlilehem  College 
a  fair  action  for  non-residence  against  such  profes- 
sors ?  Are  poets  so  few  in  this  age^  that  He  must 
write  poetry  ?  Is  morals  a  subject  so  exhausted,  that 
he  must  quit  that  line  ?  Is  the  metaphysic  well  (with- 
out a  bottom)  drained  dry  ? 

"  If  I  can  guess  at  the  wicked  pride  of  the  Profes- 
sor's heart,  I  would  take  a  shrewd  wager,  that  he  dis- 
dains ever  again  to  dip  his  pen  in  Prose.  Adieu,  ye 
splendid  theories  !  Farewell,  dreams  of  political  jus- 
tice !  Lawsuits,  where  I  was  counsel  for  Archbishop 
Fenelon  versus  my  own  mother,  in  the  famous  fire 
cause  I 

"  Vanish  from  my  mind,  professors,  one  and  all.  I 
have  metal  more  attractive  on  foot. 

"  Man  of  many  snipes,  —  I  will  sup  with  thee,  Deo 
volente,  et  diabolo  nolente,  on  Monday  night,  the  5th 
of  January,  in  the  new  year,  and  crush  a  cup  to  the 
infant  century. 


158  LETTERS   TO  MANNING. 

"  A  word  or  two  of  my  progress.  Embark  at  six 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  with  a  fresh  gale,  on  a  Cam- 
bridge one-decker ;  very  cold  till  eight  at  night ;  land 
at  St.  Mary's  light-house,  muffins  and  coffee  upon  ta- 
ble (or  any  other  curious  production  of  Turkey,  or 
both  Indies),  snipes  exactly  at  nine,  punch  to  com- 
mence at  ten,  with  argument ;  difference  of  opinion 
is  expected  to  take  place  about  eleven  ;  perfect  una- 
nimity, with  some  haziness  and  dimness,  before  twelve. 
— N.  B.  My  single  affection  is  not  so  singly  wedded 
to  snipes  ;  but  the  curious  and  epicurean  eye,  would 
also  take  a  pleasure  in  beholding  a  dehcate  and  well- 
chosen  assortment  of  teals,  ortolans,  the  unctuous  and 
palate-soothing  flesh  of  geese,  wild  and  tame,  nightin- 
gales' brains,  the  sensorium  of  a  young  sucking  pig, 
or  any  other  Christmas  dish,  which  I  leave  to  the 
judgment  of  you  and  the  cook  of  Gonville. 

"  C.  Lamb." 


CHAPTER  VII. 

[1801  to  1804,] 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING,  WORDSWORTH,  AND  COLERIDGE  ;  JOHN 
WOODVIL   REJECTED,   PUBLISHED,   AND   REVIEWED. 

The  ominous  postponement  of  Lamb's  theatrical 
hopes  was  followed  by  their  disappointment  at  the 
commencement  of  the  century.  He  was  favored  with 
at  least  one  interview  by  the  stately  manager  of  Drury- 
lane,  Mr.  Kemble,  who  extended  his  high-bred  cour- 


EDINBURGH  REVIEW.  159 

tesj  even  to  authors,  whom  he  invariably  attended  to 
the  door  of  his  house  in  Great  Russell  Street,  and  bade 
them  "beware  of  the  step."  Godwin's  catastrophe 
nad  probably  rendered  him  less  solicitous  to  encounter 
a  similar  peril ;  which  the  fondest  admirers  of  "  John 
Woodvil"  will  not  regret  that  it  escaped.  While  the 
occasional  roughness  of  its  verse  would  have  been  felt 
as  strange  to  ears  as  yet  unused  to  the  old  dramatists 
whom  Lamb's  Specimens  had  not  then  made  familiar 
to  the  town,  the  delicate  beauties  enshrined  within  it 
would  scarcely  have  been  perceived  in  the  glare  of  the 
theatre.  Exhibiting  "  the  depth,  and  not  the  tumults 
of  the  soul,"  —  presenting  a  female  character  of  mod- 
est and  retiring  loveliness  and  noble  purpose,  but  un- 
distracted  with  any  violent  emotion,  —  and  developing 
a  train  of  circumstances  which  work  out  their  gentle 
triumphs  on  the  heart  only  of  the  hero,  without  stir- 
ring accident  or  vivid  grouping  of  persons,  —  it  would 
scarcely  have  supplied  sufficient  of  coarse  interest  to 
disarm  the  critical  spirit  which  it  would  certainly  have 
encountered  in  all  its  bitterness.  Lamb  cheerfully 
consoled  himself  by  publishing  it ;  and  at  the  close  of 
the  year  1801  it  appeared  in  a  small  volume,  of  hum- 
ble appearance,  with  the  "  Fragments  of  Burton " 
(to  which  Lamb  alluded  in  one  of  his  previous  let- 
ters), two  of  his  quarto  ballads,  and  the  "  Helen " 
of  his  sister. 

The  daring  peculiarities  attracted  the  notice  of  the 
Edinburgh  reviewers,  then  in  the  infancy  of  their  slash- 
ing career,  and  the  volume  was  immolated,  in  due 
form,  by  the  self-constituted  judges,  who,  taking  for 
their  motto,  "  Judex  damnatur  cum  nocens  absolvitur.,^^ 
treated  our  author  as  a  criminal  convicted  of  publish- 


160  EDINBURGH  REVIEW. 

ing,  and  awaiting  his  doom  from  their  sentence. 
With  the  gay  recklessness  of  power,  at  once  usurped 
and  irresponsible,  they  introduced  Lord  Mansfield's 
wild  construction  of  the  law  of  libel  into  literature  ; 
like  him,  holding  every  man  primd  facie  guilty,  who 
should  be  caught  in  the  act  of  publishing  a  booJc,  and 
referring  to  the  court  to  decide  whether  sentence 
should  be  passed  on  him.  The  article  on  "  John 
Woodvil,"  which  adorned  their  third  number,  is  a 
curious  example  of  the  old  style  of  criticism  vivified 
by  the  impulses  of  youth.  We  wonder  now  —  and 
probably  the  writer  of  the  article,  if  he  is  hving,  will 
wonder  with  us  —  that  a  young  critic  should  seize  on 
a  little  eighteen-penny  book,  simply  printed  without 
any  preface ;  make  elaborate  merriment  of  its  outline, 
and,  giving  no  hint  of  its  containing  one  profound 
thought  or  happy  expression,  leave  the  reader  of  the 
review  at  a  loss  to  suggest  a  motive  for  noticing  such 
vapid  absurdities.  This  article  is  written  in  a  strain 
of  grave  banter,  the  theme  of  which  is  to  congratulate 
the  world  on  having  a  specimen  of  the  rudest  condi- 
tion of  the  drama,  "  a  man  of  the  age  of  Thespis." 
"  At  length,"  says  the  reviewer,  "  even  in  composition 
a  mighty  veteran  has  been  born.  Older  than  jEschy- 
lus,  and  with  all  the  spirit  of  originality,  in  an  age  of 
poets  who  had  before  them  the  imitations  of  some 
thousand  years,  he  comes  forward  to  establish  his  claim 
to  the  ancient  hircus,  and  to  satiate  the  most  remote 
desires  of  the  philosophic  antiquary."  On  this  text 
the  writer  proceeds,  selecting  for  his  purpose  whatever, 
torn  from  its  context,  appeared  extravagant  and  crude, 
and  ending  without  the  shghtest  hint  that  there  is 
merit,  or  promise  of  merit,  in  the  volume.     There  cer- 


EDINBURGH  REVIEW.  161 

tamly  was  no  malice,  or  desire  to  give  pain,  in  all  this ; 
it  was  merely  the  result  of  the  thoughtless  adoption, 
by  lads  of  gayety  and  talent,  of  the  old  critical  canons 
of  the  Monthly  Reviews,  which  had  been  accustomed 
to  damn  all  works  of  unpatronized  genius  in  a  more 
summary  way,  and  after  a  duller  fashion.  These  very 
critics  wrought  themselves  into  good-nature  as  they 
broke  into  deeper  veins  of  thought ;  grew  gentler  as 
they  grew  wiser:  and  sometimes,  even  when,  like 
Balaam,  they  came  to  curse,  like  him,  they  ended  with 
"  blessing  altogether,"  as  in  the  review  of  the  "  Excur- 
sion," which,  beginning  in  the  old  strain,  "  This  will 
never  do,"  proceeded  to  give  examples  of  its  noblest 
passages,  and  to  grace  them  with  worthiest  eulogy. 
And  now,  the  spirit  of  the  writers  thus  ridiculed,  es- 
pecially of  Wordsworth,  breathes  through  the  pages  of 
this  very  Review,  and  they  not  seldom  wear  the  "  rich 
embroidery  "  of  the  language  of  the  poet  once  scoffed 
at  by  their  literary  corporation  as  too  puerile  for  the 
nursery. 

Lamb's  occasional  connection  with  newspapers  in- 
troduced liim  to  some  of  the  editors  and  contributors 
of  that  day,  who  sought  to  repair  the  spirit  wasted 
by  perpetual  exertion  in  the  protracted  conviviahty  of 
the  evening,  and  these  associates  sometimes  left  poor 
Lamb  Avith  an  aching  head,  and  a  purse  exhausted  by 
the  claims  of  their  necessities  upon  it.  Among  those 
was  Fen  wick,  immortalized  as  the  Bigod  of  "  Elia," 
who  edited  several  iU-fated  newspapers  in  succession, 
and  was  the  author  of  many  libels,  which  did  his 
employers  no  good  and  his  Majesty's  government  no 
harm.  These  connections  will  explain  some  of  the 
allusions  in  the  following  letters. 

VOL.    I.  11 


162  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 


"  I  heard  that  you  were  going  to  China,*  with  a 
commission  from  the  Wedgwoods  to  collect  hints  for 
their  pottery,  and  to  teach  the  Chinese  perspective. 
But  I  did  not  know  that  London  lay  in  your  way  to 
Pekin.  I  am  seriously  glad  of  it,  for  I  shall  trouble 
you  with  a  small  present  for  the  Emperor  of  Usbeck 
Tartary,  as  you  go  by  his  territories :  it  is  a  fragment 
of  a  '  Dissertation  on  the  state  of  political  parties  in 
England  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,'  which 
will  no  doubt  be  very  interesting  to  his  Imperial  Maj- 
esty. It  was  written  originally  in  English  for  the 
use  of  the  two  and  twenty  readers  of  '  The  Albion,' 
(this  calculation  includes  a  printer,  four  pressmen,  and 
a  devil)  ;  but  becoming  of  no  use  when  '  The  Albion' 
stopped,  I  got  it  translated  into  Usbeck  Tartar  by 
my  good  friend  Tibet  Kulm,  who  is  come  to  London 
with  a  civil  invitation  from  the  Cham  to  the  English 
nation  to  go  over  to  the  worship  of  the   Lama. 

"  '  The  Albion '  is  dead  —  dead  as  nail  in  door  — 
and  my  revenues  have  died  with  it ;  but  I  am  not 
as  a  man  without  hope.  I  have  got  a  sort  of  an  open- 
ing to  the  '  Morning  Chronicle  ! ! ! '  Mr.  Manning,  by 
means  of  that  common  dispenser  of  benevolence.  Mis- 
ter Dyer.  I  have  not  seen  Perry,  the  editor,  yet : 
but  I  am  preparing  a  specimen.  I  shall  have  a  diffi- 
cult job  to  manage,  for  you  must  know  that  Mr. 
Perry,  in  common  with  the  great  body  of  the  Whigs, 
thinks  '  The  Albion  '  very  loiv.     I  find  I  must  rise  a 

*  Mr.  Manning  had  begun  to  be  haunted  with  the  idea  of  China,  and  to 
talk  of  going  thither,  which  he  accomplished  some  years  afterwards,  with- 
out any  motive  but  a  desire  to  see  that  great  uation. 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  163 

peg  or  so,  be  a  little  more  decent,  and  less  abusive  ; 
for,  to  confess  the  truth,  I  had  arrived  to  an  abomi- 
nable pitch  ;  I  spared  neither  age  nor  sex  when  m}/ 
cue  was  given  me.  NHmporte^  (as  they  say  in  French,) 
any  climate  will  suit  me.  So  you  are  about  to  bring 
your  old  face-making  face  to  London.  You  could  not 
come  in  a  better  time  for  my  purposes  ;  for  I  have 
just  lost  Rickman,  a  faint  idea  of  whose  character  I 
sent  you.  He  is  gone  to  Ireland  for  a  year  or  two, 
to  make  his  fortune;  and  I  have  lost  by  his  going, 
what  seems  to  me  I  can  never  recover  —  a  finulied 
man.  His  memory  will  be  to  me  as  the  brazen  ser- 
pent to  the  Israelites,  —  I  shall  look  up  to  it,  to  keep 
me  upright  and  honest.  But  he  may  yet  bring  back 
his  honest  face  to  England  one  day.  I  wish  your 
affairs  with  the  Emperor  of  China  had  not  been  so 
urgent^  that  you  might  have  stayed  in  Great  Britain 
a  year  or  two  longer,  to  have  seen  him  ;  for,  judging 
jfrom  my  own  experience,  I  almost  dare  pronounce  you 
never  saw  his  equal.  I  never  saw  a  man,  that  could 
be  at  all  a  second  or  substitute  for  him  in  any  sort. 
"  Imagine  that  what  is  here  erased,  was  an  apology 
and  explanation,  perfectly  satisfactory  you  may  be  sure  ! 

for  rating  this  man  so  highly  at  the  expense  of , 

and ,  and ,  and  M ,  and ,  and , 

and .  But  Mr.  Burke  has  explained  this  phenom- 
enon of  our  nature  very  prettily  in  his  letter  to  a  Mem- 
ber of  the  National  Assembly,  or  else  in  Appeal  to  the 
old  Whigs,  I  forget  which  —  do  you  remember  an 
instance  from  Homer,  (who  understood  these  matters 
tolerably  well,)  of  Priam  driving  away  his  other  sons 
with  expressions  of  wrath  and  bitter  reproach,  when 
Hector  was  just  dead. 


164  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

"  I  live  where  I  did  in  a  private  manner,  because  I 
don't  like  state.  Nothing  is  so  disagreeable  to  me  as 
the  clamors  and  applauses  of  the  mob.  For  this  reason 
I  live  in  an  obscure  situation  in  one  of  the  courts  of  the 
Temple. 

"  C.  L. 

"  I  send  you  all  of  Coleridge's  letters  *  to  me,  which 
I  have  preserved :  some  of  them  are  upon  the  subject 
of  my  play.  I  also  send  you  Kemble's  two  letters,  and 
the  prompter's  courteous  epistle,  with  a  curious  critique 
on  '  Pride's  Cure,'  by  a  young  physician  from  Edin- 
BRo',  who  modestly  suggests  quite  another  kind  of  a 
plot.  These  are  monuments  of  my  disappointment 
which  I  like  to  preserve. 

"  In  Coleridge's  letters  you  will  find  a  good  deal  of 
amusement  to  see  genuine  talent  strugghng  against  a 
pompous  display  of  it.  I  also  send  you  the  Professor's 
letter  to  me,  (careful  professor  !  to  conceal  his  name 
even  from  his  correspondent,)  ere  yet  the  Professor's 
pride  was  cured.  Oh  !  monstrous  and  almost  satanical 
pride ! 

"  You  will  carefidly  keep  all  (except  the  Scotch 
Doctor's,  which  burn)  in  statu  quo,  till  I  come  to  claim 
mine  own. 

"  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  is  in  reply  to  a  pressing  invitation  from 
Mr.  Wordsworth,  to  visit  him  at  the  Lakes. 

*  Lamb  afterwards,  in  some  melancholy  mood,  destroyed  all  Coleridge's 
Letters,  and  was  so  vexed  with  what  he  had  done,  that  he  never  preserved 
any  letters  which  he  received  afterwards. 


LETTER   TO   WORDSWORTH.  165 


TO  MR.   WORDSWORTH. 

"  Jan.  30th,  1801. 

"  I  ought  before  this  to  have  replied  to  your  very 
kind  invitation  into  Cumberland.     With  you  and  your 
sister  I  could  gang  anywhere ;  but  I  am  afraid  whether 
I  shall  ever  be  able  to  afford  so  desperate  a  journey. 
Separate  from  the  pleasure  of  your  company,  I  don't 
much  care  if  I  never  see  a  mountain  in  my  life.     I 
have  passed  all  my  days  in  London,  until  I  have  formed 
as  many  and  intense  local  attachments,  as  any  of  you 
mountaineers  can  have  done  with  dead  nature.     The 
lighted  shops  of  the  Strand  and  Fleet  Street ;  the  in- 
numerable trades,  tradesmen,  and  customers,  coaches, 
wagons,    playhouses ;    all   the   bustle   and   wickedness 
round  about  Covent  Garden  ;   the  very  women  of  the 
Town  ;  the  watchmen,  drunken  scenes,  rattles  —  life 
awake,  if  you  awake,  at  all  hours  of  the  night ;  the 
impossibility  of  being  dull  in  Fleet  Street ;  the  crowds, 
the  very  dirt  and  mud,  the   sun  shining  upon  houses 
and  pavements,  the  print-shops,  the  old-book  stalls,  par- 
sons cheapening  books,  coffee-houses,  steams  of  soups 
from  kitchens,  the  pantomimes  —  London  itself  a  pan- 
tomime   and   a   masquerade  —  all   these   things  work 
themselves  into  my  mind,  and  feed  me  without  a  power 
of  satiating  me.     The  wonder  of  these  sights  impels  me 
into  night  walks  about  her  crowded  streets,  and  I  often 
shed  tears  in  the  motley  Strand  from  fulness  of  joy  at 
so  much  life.     All  these  emotions  must  be  strange  to 
you  ;  so  are  your  rural  emotions  to  me.     But  consider 
what  must  I  have  been  doing  all  my  life,  not  to  have 
iCnt  great  portions   of  my  heart  with  usury  to  such 
scenes  ? 


166  LETTER  TO   WORDSWORTH. 

"  My  attachments  are  all  local,  pvirelj  local  —  1 
have  no  passion  (or  have  had  none  since  I  was  in  love, 
and  then  it  was  the  spurious  engendering  of  poetry  and 
books,)  to  groves  and  valleys.  The  rooms  where  I  was 
born,  the  furniture  which  has  been  before  my  eyes  all 
my  life,  a  bookcase  which  has  followed  me  about  like 
a  faithful  dog,  (only  exceeding  him  in  knowledge,) 
wherever  I  have  moved,  old  chairs,  old  tables,  streets, 
squares  where  I  have  sunned  myself,  my  old  school,  — 
these  are  my  mistresses  —  have  I  not  enough,  without 
your  mountains  ?  I  do  not  envy  you.  I  should  pity 
you,  did  I  not  know  that  the  mind  will  make  fi'iends 
of  anything.  Your  sun,  and  moon,  and  skies,  and  hills, 
and  lakes,  affect  me  no  more,  or  scarcely  come  to  me 
in  more  venerable  characters,  than  as  a  gilded  room 
with  tapestry  and  tapers,  where  I  might  live  with 
handsome  visible  objects.  I  consider  the  clouds  above 
me  but  as  a  roof  beautifully  painted,  but  unable  to 
satisfy  the  mind :  and  at  last,  like  the  pictures  of  the 
apartment  of  a  connoisseur,  unable  to  afford  him  any 
longer  a  pleasure.  So  fading  upon  me,  from  disuse, 
have  been  the  beauties  of  Natiu*e,  as  they  have  been 
confinedly  called  ;  so  ever  fresh,  and  green,  and  warm 
are  all  the  inventions  of  men,  and  assemblies  of  men  in 
this  great  city.  I  should  certainly  have  laughed  with 
dear  Joanna.* 

"  Give  my  kindest  love,  and  my  sister's,  to  D. 
and  yourself.  And  a  kiss  from  me  to  little  Barbara 
Lewthwaite.f     Thank  you  for  liking  my  play  ! 

"  C.  L." 

*  Alluding  to  the  Inscription  of  Wordsworth's,  entitled  "  Joanna,"  con- 
taining a  magnificent  description  of  the  efiect  of  laughter  echoing  amidst 
the  great  mountains  of  Westmoreland. 

t  Alluding  to  Wordsworth's  poem,  "  The  Pet  Lamb." 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  167 

The  next  two  letters  were  written  to  Manning  when 
on  a  tour  upon  the  Continent. 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  Feb.  15th,  1802. 
^^  Apropos^  I  think  you  wrong  about  my  play.  All 
the  omissions  are  right.  And  the  supplementary  scene, 
in  which  Sandford  narrates  the  manner  in  which  his 
master  is  affected,  is  the  best  in  the  book.  It  stands 
where  a  hodge-podge  of  German  puerilities  used  to 
stand.  I  insist  upon  it  that  you  like  that  scene.  Love 
me,  love  that  scene.  I  will  now  transcribe  the  '  Lon- 
doner' (No.  1),  and  wind  up  all  with  affection  and 
humble  servant  at  the  end." 

[Here  was  transcribed  the  essay  called  "  The  Lon- 
doner," which  was  published  some  years  afterwards  in 
"  The  Reflector,"  and  which  forms  part  of  Lamb's  col- 
lected works.]     He  then  proceeds :  — 

"  '  What  is  all  this  about ! '  said  Mrs.  Shandy.  '  A 
story  of  a  cock  and  a  bull, '  said  Yorick  :  and  so  it  is  ; 
but  Manning  will  take  good-naturedly  what  Giod  will 
send  him  across  the  water:  only  I  hope  hejjsron't  shut 
his  eyes^  and  open  his  mouthy  as  the  children  say,  for 
that  is  the  way  to  gape^  and  not  to  read.  Manning, 
continue  your  laudable  purpose  of  making  me  your  reg- 
ister. I  will  render  back  all  your  remarks ;  and  /,  not 
you^  shall  have  received  usury  by  having  read  them. 
In  the  mean  time,  may  the  great  Spirit  have  you  in 
his  keeping,  and  preserve  our  Englishman  from  the 
inoculation  of  frivolity  and  sin  upon  French  earth. 


168  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

"  Allons  —  or  what  is  it  you  say,  instead  of  goodr 
hyef 

"  Mary  sends  her  kind  remembrance,  and  covets  the 
remarks  equally  with  me. 

"C.  Lamb." 

TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  My  dear  Manning,  —  I  must  positively  write,  or  I 
shall  miss  you  at  Toulouse.  I  sit  here  like  a  decayed 
minute-hand  (I  lie ;  that  does  not  sit,^  and  being  my- 
self the  exponent  of  no  time,  take  no  heed  how  the 
clocks  about  me  are  going.  You  possibly  by  this  time 
may  have  explored  all  Italy,  and  toppled,  unawares, 
into  Etna,  while  you  went  too  near  those  rotten-jawed, 
gap-toothed,  old  worn-out  chaps  of  hell,  — while  I  am 
meditating  a  quiescent  letter  to  the  honest  postmaster 
of  Toulouse.  But  in  case  you  should  not  have  been 
felo  de  se,  this  is  to  tell  you,  that  your  letter  was  quite 
to  my  palate  —  in  particular  your  just  remarks  upon 
Industry,  cursed  Industry,  (though  indeed  you  left  me 
to  explore  the  reason,)  were  highly  relishing.  I  have 
often  wished  I  lived  in  the  golden  age,  when  shepherds 
lay  stretched  upon  flowers,  —  the  genius  there  is  in  a 
man's  natural  idle  face,  that  has  not  learned  his  mul- 
tiplication table !  before  doubt,  and  propositions,  and 
corollaries,  got  into  the  world  ! 

^  ^  ?F  ^If  ^  ¥^ 

"  Apropos :  if  you  should  go  to  Florence  or  to 
Rome,  inquire  what  works  are  extant  in  gold,  silver, 
bronze,  or  marble,  of  Benvenuto  Cellini,  a  Florentine 
artist,  whose  Life,  doubtless,  you  have  read ;  or,  if  not, 
without  controversy,  you  must  read,  so  hark  ye,  send 
for  it  immediately  from  Lane's  circulating  library.     It 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  169 

is  always  put  among  the  romances,  very  properly ;  but 
you  have  read  it,  I  suppose.  In  particular,  inquire  at 
Florence  for  his  colossal  bronze  statue  (in  the  grand 
square,  or  somewhere)  of  Perseus.  You  may  read  the 
story  in  '  Tooke's  Pantheon.'  Nothing  material  has 
transpired  in  these  parts.  Coleridge  has  indited  a  vio- 
lent philippic  against  Mr.  Fox  in  the  '  Morning  Post,' 
which  is  a  compound  of  expressions  of  humility,  gen- 
tleman-ushering-in  most  arrogant  charges.  It  will  do 
Mr.  Fox  no  real  injury  among  those  that  know  him." 

In  the  summer  of  1802,  Lamb,  in  company  with  his 
sister,  visited  the  Lakes,  and  spent  three  weeks  with 
Colerido-e  at  Keswick.  There  he  also  met  the  true 
annihilator  of  the  slave-trade,  Thomas  Clarkson,  who 
was  then  enjoying  a  necessary  respite  from  his  stupen- 
dous labors,  in  a  cottage  on  the  borders  of  Ulswater. 
Lamb  had  no  taste  for  oratorical  philanthropy  ;  but  he 
felt  the  grandeur  and  simplicity  of  Clarkson's  char- 
acter, and  appreciated  the  unexampled  self-denial  with 
which  he  steeled  his  heart,  trembling  with  nervous  sen- 
sibility, to  endure  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  foul- 
est details  of  guilt  and  wickedness  which  he  lived,  and 
could  have  died,  to  abolish.  Wordsworth  was  not  in 
the  Lake-country  during  Lamb's  visit ;  but  he  made 
amends  by  spending  some  time  in  town  after  Lamb's 
return,  and  then  quitted  it  for  Yorkshire  to  be  married. 
Lamb's  following  letters  show  that  he  made  some  ad- 
vances towards  fellowship  with  the  hills  which  at  a  dis- 
tance he  had  treated  so  cavaherly ;  but  his  feelings 
never  heartily  associated  with  "  the  bare  earth,  and 
mountains  bare,"  which  sufficed  Wordsworth ;  he 
rather   loved   to   cleave  to    the  little    hints  and   sug- 


170  LETTER  TO   COLERIDGE. 

gestions  of  nature  in  the  midst  of  crowded  cities.  In 
his  latter  years  I  have  heard  him,  when  longing  after 
London  among  the  pleasant  fields  of  Enfield,  declare 
that  liis  love  of  natural  scenery  would  be  abundantly 
satisfied  by  the  patches  of  long  waving  grass,  and  the 
stunted  trees  that  blacken  in  the  old-churchyard  nooks 
which  you  may  yet  find  bordering  on  Thames  Street. 


TO   MR.    COLERIDGE. 

"  Sept.  8th,  1802. 

"  Dear  Coleridge,  —  I  thought  of  not  writing  till 
we  had  performed  some  of  our  commissions  ;  but  we 
have  been  hindered  from  setting  about  them,  which 
yet  shall  be  done  to  a  tittle.  We  got  home  very 
pleasantly  on  Sunday.  Mary  is  a  good  deal  fatigued, 
and  finds  the  difference  of  going  to  a  place,  and 
coming  from  it.  I  feel  that  I  shall  remember  your 
mountains  to  the  last  day  I  live.  They  haunt  me 
perpetually.  I  am  like  a  man  who  has  been  falling 
in  love  unknown  to  himself,  which  he  finds  out  when 
he  leaves  the  lady.  I  do  not  remember  any  very 
strong  impression  while  they  were  present ;  but,  being 
gone,  their  mementos  are  shelved  in  my  brain.  We 
passed  a  Yery  pleasant  little  time  with  the  Clarksons. 
The  Wordsworths  are  at  Montague's  rooms,  near 
neighbors  to  us.*  They  dined  with  us  yesterday,  and 
I  was  their  guide  to  Bartlemy  Fair  !  " 

*  Mr.  Basil  Montague   and  his  lady,  who  were   during  Lamb's   life, 
among  his  most  cordial  and   most  honored  friends. 


LETTER  TO  MANNING.  171 


TO   MR.  MANNING. 

"24tli  Sept.  1802,  London. 

"  My  dear  Manning,  —  Since  the  date  of  my  last 
letter,  I  have  been  a  traveller.  A  strong  desire  seized 
me  of  visiting  remote  regions.  My  first  impulse  was 
to  go  and  see  Paris.  It  was  a  trivial  objection  to  my 
aspiring  mind,  that  I  did  not  understand  a  word  of  the 
language,  since  I  certainly  intend  some  time  in  my 
life  to  see  Paris,  and  equally  certainly  intend  never 
to  learn  the  language ;  therefore  that  could  be  no  ob- 
jection. However,  I  am  very  glad  I  did  not  go,  be- 
cause you  had  left  Paris  (I  see)  before  I  could  have 
set  out.  I  believe,  Stoddart  promising  to  go  with  me 
another  year,  prevented  that  plan.  My  next  scheme 
(for  to  my  restless,  ambitious  mind  London  was  be- 
come a  bed  of  thorns)  was  to  visit  the  far-famed 
peak  in  Derbyshire,  where  the  Devil  sits,  they  say, 
without  breeches.  This  my  purer  mind  rejected  as 
indelicate.  And  my  final  resolve  was,  a  tour  to  the 
Lakes.  I  set  out  with  Mary  to  Keswick,  without 
giving  Coleridge  any  notice,  for  my  time  being  pre- 
cious, did  not  admit  of  it.  He  received  us  with  all 
the  hospitality  in  the  world,  and  gave  up  his  time  to 
show  us  all  the  wonders  of  the  country.  He  dwells 
upon  a  small  hill  by  the  side  of  Keswick,  in  a  com- 
fortable house,  quite  enveloped  on  all  sides  by  a  net 
of  mountains  :  great  flounderincp  bears  and  monsters 
they  seemed,  all  couchant  and  asleep.  We  got  in  in 
the  evening,  travelUng  in  a  postchaise  from  Penrith, 
in  the  midst  of  a  o-orgeous  sunshine,  which  transmuted 
all  the  mountains  into  colors,  purple,  &c.  &c.  We 
thought  we  had  got  into  fairy-land.     But  that  went 


172  LETTER   TO  MANNING. 

off  (as  it  never  came  again,  while  we  stayed  we  had 
no  more  fine  sunsets)  ;  and  we  entered  Coleridge's 
comfortable  study  just  in  the  dusk,  when  the  mountains 
were  all  dark  with  clouds  upon  their  heads.  Such 
an  impression  I  never  received  from  objects  of  sight 
before,  nor  do  I  suppose  that  I  can  ever  again.  Glo- 
rious creatures,  fine  old  fellows,  Skiddaw,  &c.  I  never 
shall  forget  ye,  how  ye  lay  about  that  night,  like  an 
intrenchment ;  gone  to  bed,  as  it  seemed  for  the  night, 
but  promising  that  ye  were  to  be  seen  in  the  morning. 
Coleridge  had  got  a  blazing  fire  in  his  study ;  which 
is  a  large,  antique,  ill-shaped  room,  with  an  old-fash- 
ioned organ,  never  played  upon,  big  enough  for  a 
church,  shelves  of  scattered  folios,  an  ^olian  harp, 
and  an  old  sofa,  half  bed,  &c.  And  all  looking  out 
upon  the  last  fading  view  of  Skiddaw,  and  his  broad- 
breasted  brethren :  what  a  night !  Here  we  stayed 
three  full  weeks,  in  which  time  I  visited  Wordsworth's 
cottage,  where  we  stayed  a  day  or  two  with  the  Clark- 
sons  (good  people,  and  most  hospitable,  at  whose  house 
we  tarried  one  day  and  night),  and  saw  Lloyd.  The 
Wordsworths  were  gone  to  Calais.  They  have  since 
been  in  London,  and  past  much  time  with  us  :  he  is 
now  gone  into  Yorkshire  to  be  married.  So  we  have 
seen  Keswick,  Grasmere,  Ambleside,  Ulswater  (where 
the  Clarksons  live),  and  a  place  at  the  other  end  of 
Ulswater  :  I  forget  the  name  ;  *  to  which  we  travelled 
on  a  very  sultry  day,  over  the  middle  of  Helvellyn. 
We  have  clambered  up  to  the  top  of  Skiddaw,  and 
I  have  waded  up  the  bed  of  Lodore.  In  fine,  I  have 
satisfied  myself,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  that 
which  tourists  call  romantic^  which  I  very  much  sus- 

*  Patterdale. 


LETTER   TO   MANNING.  173 

pected  before  :  they  make  such  a  spluttering  about  it, 
and  toss  their  splendid  epithets  around  them,  till  they 
give  as  dim  a  light  as  at  four  o'clock  next  morning 
the  lamps  do  after  an  illumination.  Mary  was  exces- 
sively tired,  when  she  got  about  half-way  up  SkiddaAv, 
but  we  came  to  a  cold  rill  (than  which  nothing  can 
be  imagined  more  cold,  running  over  cold  stones), 
and  with  the  reinforcement  of  a  draught  of  cold  water 
she  surmounted  it  most  manfully.  Oh,  its  fine  black 
head,  and  the  bleak  air  atop  of  it,  with  a  prospect 
of  mountains  all  about  and  about,  making  you  giddy  ; 
and  then  Scotland  afar  off,  and  the  border  countries 
so  famous  in  song  and  ballad  !  It  was  a  day  that  will 
stand  out,  like  a  mountain,  I  am  sure,  in  my  life. 
But  I  am  returned  (I  have  now  been  come  home 
near  three  weeks  —  I  was  a  month  out),  and  you 
cannot  conceive  the  degradation  I  felt  at  first,  fi'om 
being  accustomed  to  wander  free  as  air  among  moun- 
tains, and  bathe  in  rivers  without  being  controlled  by 
any  one,  to  come  home  and  worh.  I  felt  very  little. 
I  had  been  dreaming  I  was  a  very  great  man.  But 
that  is  going  off",  and  I  find  I  shall  conform  in  time  to 
that  state  of  life  to  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  call 
me.  Besides,  after  all,  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand 
are  better  places  to  live  in  for  good  and  all  than 
amidst  Skiddaw.  Still,  I  tiim  back  to  those  great 
places  where  I  wandered  about,  participating  in  their 
greatness.  After  all,  I  could  not  live  in  Skiddaw,  I 
could  spend  a  year,  two,  three  years  among  them,  but 
I  must  have  a  prospect  of  seeing  Fleet  Street  at  the 
end  of  that  time,  or  I  should  mope  and  pine  away, 
I  know.  Still,  Skiddaw  is  a  fine  creature.  My  hab- 
its are  changing,  I  think,  i.  e.  fi-om  drunk  to  sober. 


174  LETTER  TO  MANNING. 

Whether  I  shall  be  happier  or  not,  remains  to  be 
proved.  I  shall  certainly  be  more  happy  in  a  morn- 
ing ;  but  whether  I  shall  not  sacrifice  the  fat,  and 
the  marrow,  and  the  kidneys,  ^.  e.  the  night,  glorious 
care-drowning  night,  that  heals  all  our  wrongs,  pours 
wine  into  our  mortifications,  changes  the  scene  from 
indifferent  and  flat  to  briofht  and  brilliant  ?  —  O  Man- 
ning,  if  I  should  have  formed  a  diabolical  resolution, 
by  the  time  you  come  to  England,  of  not  admitting 
any  spirituous  liquors  into  my  house,  will  you  be  my 
guest  on  such  shameworthy  terms  ?  Is  life,  with  such 
limitations  worth  trying  ?  The  truth  is,  that  my  liq- 
uors bring  a  nest  of  friendly  harpies  about  my  house, 
who  consume  me.  This  is  a  pitiful  tale  to  be  read 
at  St.  Gothard,  but  it  is  just  now  nearest  my  heart. 

F is  a  ruined  man.     He  is  hiding  himself  from 

his  creditors,  and  has  sent  his  wife  and  children  into 

the    country.       ,  my    other    drunken    companion 

(that  has  been  :  nam  hie  caestus  artemque  repono),  is 
turned  editor  of  a  Naval  Chronicle.  Godwin  contin- 
ues a  steady  friend,  though  the  same  facility  does  not 
remain  of  visiting  him  often.  Holcroft  is  not  yet 
come  to  town.  I  expect  to  see  him,  and  will  deliver 
your  message.  Things  come  crowding  in  to  say,  and 
no  room  for  'em.  Some  things  are  too  little  to  be 
told,  i.  e.  to  have  a  preference ;  some  are  too  big 
and  circumstantial.  Thanks  for  yours,  which  was 
most  delicious.  Wovild  I  had  been  with  you,  be- 
nighted, &c.  I  fear  my  head  is  turned  with  wander- 
ing. I  shall  never  be  the  same  acquiescent  being. 
Farewell ;  write  again  quickly,  for  I  shall  not  like  to 
hazard  a  letter,  not  knowing  where  the  fates  have 
carried  you.     Farewell,  my  dear  fellow. 

"  C.  Lamb." 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  175 

Lamb  was  fond  of  Latin  composition  when  at  school, 
and  was  then  praised  for  it.  He  was  always  fond  of 
readino;  Latin  verse,  and  late  in  life  taught  his  sister  to 
read  it.  About  this  time,  he  hazarded  the  following 
Latin  letter  to  Coleridge,  of  whose  classical  acquire- 
ments he  stood  in  awe. 


CAROLUS  AGNUS  COLERIDGIO  SUO  S. 

"  Carissime,  —  Scribis,  ut  nummos  scilicet  epistola- 
rios  solvam  et  postremo  in  Tartara  abeam :  immo  tu 
potius  Tartaricum  (ut  aiunt)  deprehendisti,  qui  me 
vernacula  mea  lingua  pro  sci'iba  conductitio  per  tot 
annos  satis  eleganter  usum  ad  Latin^  impure  et  canino 
fere  ore  latrandum  per  tuasmet  epistolas  ben^  composi- 
tas  et  concinnatas  percellire  studueris.  Conabor  ta- 
men :  Attamen  vereor,  ut  JEdes  istas  nostri  Christi, 
inter  quas  tanta  diligentia  magistri  improba  bonis  lite- 
rulis,  quasi  per  clysterem  quendam  injectis,  infra  supra- 
que  ohm  penitus  imbutus  ftu,  Barnesii  et  Marklandii 
doctissimorum  virorum  nominibus  adhuc  gaudentes,  bar- 
barismis  meis  peregrinis  et  aliunde  quaesitis  valde  de- 
honestavero.  Sed  pergere  quocunque  placet.  Adeste 
igitm-,  quotquot  estis,  conjugationum  declinationumve 
turmae,  terribilia  spectra,  et  tu  imprimis  ades.  Umbra 
et  Imago  maxima  obsoletae  (Diis  gratiae)  Virgse,  qua 
novissime  in  mentem  recepta,  horrescunt  subito  na- 
tales,  et  pamm  deest  quo  minus  braccas  meas  ultro 
usque  ad  crura  demittam,  et  ipse  puer  pueriliter  eju- 
lem. 

"  Ista  tua  Carmina  Chamouniana  satis  grandia  esse 
mihi  constat ;  sed  hoc  mihi  nonnihil  displicit,  quod  in 
iis  illae  montium  Grisosonum  inter  se  responsiones  tot- 


176  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

idem  reboant  anglice,  Crod,  God,  haud  aliter  atque 
temet  audivi  tuas  montes  Cumbrianas  resonare  docen- 
tes,  Tod,  Tod,  nempe  Doctorem  infelicem :  vocem  certe 
haud  Deum  Sonantem.     Pro  caeteris  plaudo. 

"  Itidem  comparationes  istas  tuas  satis  callidas  et 
lepidas  certe  novi :  sed  quid  hoc  ad  verum  ?  cum  illi 
Consulari  viro  et  mentem  irritabilem  istum  Julianum ; 
et  etiam  astutias  frigidulas  quasdem  Augusto  propri- 
ores,  nequaquam  congruenter  uno  afflatu  compara- 
tionis  causa  insedisse  affirmaveris :  necnon  nescio  quid 
simihtudinis  etiam  cum  Tiberio  tertio  in  loco  solicite 
produxeris.  Quid  tibi  equidem  cum  uno  vel  altero 
Caesare,  cum  universi  Duodecim  ad  comparationes 
tuas  se  ultro  tulerint  ?  Praeterea,  vetustati  adnutans, 
comparationes  iniquas  odi. 

"  Istas  Wordsworthianas  nuptias  (vel  potius  cujus- 
dam  Edmmidii  tui)  te  retulisse  mirificum  gaudeo.  Va- 
leas,  Maria,  fortunata  nimium,  et  antiquse  illae  Marias 
Virgini  (comparatione  plusquam  Caesareana)  forsitan 
comparanda,  quoniam  '  beata  inter  mulieres  : '  et  etiam 
fortasse  Wordsworthium  ipsum  tuum  maritum  Angelo 
Salutatori  aequare  fas  erit,  quoniam  e  Coelo  (ut  ille) 
descendunt  et  Musae  et  ipsae  Musicolae :  at  Words- 
worthium Musarum  observaiitissimum  semper  novi. 
Necnon  te  quoque  affinitate  hac  nov^,  Dorothea,  grat- 
ulor :  et  tu  certe  alterum  donum  Dei. 

"  Istum  Ludum,  quem  tu,  Coleridgi,  Americanum 
garris,  a  Ludo  (ut  Ludi  sunt)  maxim^  abhorrentem 
praetereo  :  nempe  quid  ad  Ludum  attinet,  totius  illae 
gentis  Columbianae,  a  nostra  gente,  eadem  stirpe  orta, 
ludi  singuli  causa  voluntatem  perperam  alienare  ? 
Quaeso  ego  materiam  ludi :   te  Bella  ingeris. 

"  Denique  valeas,  et  quid  de  Latinitate  me§,  putes, 


LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE.  177 

• 

dicas  :  facias  ut  opossum  ilium  nostrum  volantem  vel 
(ut  tu  malis)  quendam  Piscem  errabundum,  a  me 
salvum  et  pulcherrimum  esse  jubeas.  Valeant  uxor 
tua  cum  Hartleiio  nostro.  Soror  mea  salva  est  et 
ego :  vos  et  ipsa  salvere  jubet.  Ulterius  progrediri 
non  liquet :   homo  sum  seratus. 

"  P.  S.  Pene  mihi  exciderat,  apud  me  esse  Libro- 
rum  a  Johanno  Miltono  Latin^  scriptorum  volumina 
duo,  quae  (Deo  volente)  cum  cgeteris  tuis  libris  ocyus 
citius  per  Maria  ad  te  missura  curabo ;  sed  me  in 
hoc  tali  genere  rerum  nullo  modo  festinantem  novisti : 
habes  confitentem  reum.  Hoc  solum  dici  restat,  prae- 
dicta  volumina  pulchra  esse  et  omnia  opera  Latina  J. 
M.  in  se  continere.  Circa  defensionem  istam  Pro  Pop°. 
Ang°.  acerrimam  in  praesens  ipse  praeclaro  gaudio 
moror. 

"  Jussa  tua  Stuartina  faciam  ut  dilifrenter  colam. 
"  Iterum  iterumque  valeas. 

"  Et  facias  memor  sis  nostri." 

The  publication  of  the  second  volume  of  the  "  An- 
thology "  gave  occasion  to  the  following  letter :  — 


TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  In  the  next  edition  of  the  '  Anthology  '  (which 
Phoebus  avert,  and  those  nine  other  wanderine:  maids 
also  !)  please  to  blot  out  gentle-hearted,  and  substitute 
drunken-dog,  ragged-head,  seld-shaven,  odd-eyed,  stut- 
tering, or  any  other  epithet  which  truly  and  proper- 
ly belongs  to  the  gentleman  in  question.  And  for 
Charles  read  Tom,  or  Bob,  or  Richard  for  more  del- 
icacy.    Hang  you,  I   was  beginning  to  forgive   you, 

VOL.   I.  12 


178  LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE. 

and  believe  in  earnest  that  the  lugging  in  of  my 
proper  name  was  purely  unintentional  on  your  part, 
when  looking  back  for  fm'ther  conviction,  stares  me 
in  the  face  Charles  Lamb  of  the  India  House.  Now 
I  am  convinced  it  was  all  done  in  malice,  heaped 
sack-upon-sack,  congregrated,  studied  malice.  You 
dog  !  your  141st  page  shall  not  save  you.  I  own  I 
was  just  ready  to  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  some- 
thing not  unlike  good  poetry  in  that  page,  if  you  had 
not  run  into  the  unintelligible  abstraction-fit  about  the 
manner  of  the  Deity's  making  spirits  perceive  his  pres- 
ence. God,  nor  created  thing  alive,  can  receive  any 
honor  from  such  thin  show-box  attributes.  By-the- 
by,  where  did  you  pick  up  that  scandalous  piece  of 
private  history  about  the  angel  and  the  Duchess  of 
Devonshire  ?  If  it  is  a  fiction  of  your  own,  why 
truly  it  is  a  very  modest  one  for  you.  Now  I  do 
affirm,  that  '  Lewti '  is  a  very  beautiful  poem.  I  was 
in  earnest  when  I  praised  it.  It  describes  a  silly  spe- 
cies of  one  not  the  wisest  of  passions.  Therefore  it 
cannot  deeply  affect  a  disenthralled  mind.  But  such 
imagery,  such  novelty,  such  delicacy,  and  such  ver- 
sification never  got  into  an  '  Anthology  '  before.  I 
am  only  sorry  that  the  cause  of  all  the  passionate 
complaint  is  not  greater  than  the  trifling  circumstance 
of  Lewti  being  out  of  temper  one  day.  '  Gaulberto ' 
certainly  has  considerable  originality,  but  sadly  wants 
finishing.  It  is,  as  it  is,  one  of  the  very  best  in  the 
book.  Next  to  '  Lewti '  I  like  the  '  Raven,'  which  has 
a  good  deal  of  humor.  I  was  pleased  to  see  it  again, 
for  you  once  sent  it  me,  and  I  have  lost  the  letter 
which  contained  it.  Now  I  am  on  the  subject  of 
Anthologies,  I  must  say  I  am  sorry  the  old  pastoral 


LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE.  179 

way  is  fallen  into  disrepute.  The  gentry  which  now 
indite  sonnets  are  certainly  the  legitimate  descendants 
of  the  ancient  shepherds.  The  same  simpering  face 
of  description,  the  old  family  face,  is  visibly  continued 
in  the  hue.  Some  of  their  ancestors'  labors  are  yet 
to  be  found  in  Allan  Ramsay's  and  Jacob  Tonson's 
Miscellanies.  But  miscellanies  decaying,  and  the  old 
pastoral  way  dying  of  mere  want,  their  successors 
(driven  from  their  paternal  acres)  nowadays  settle 
and  hive  upon  Magazines  and  Anthologies.  This 
race  of  men  are  uncommonly  addicted  to  superstition. 
Some  of  them  are  idolators  and  worship  the  moon. 
Others  deify  qualities,  as  love,  friendship,  sensibility ; 
or  bare  accidents,  as  Solitude.  Grief  and  Melancholy 
have  their  respective  altars  and  temples  among  them, 
as  the  heathens  builded  theirs  to  Mors,  Febris,  Pal- 
lor, &c.  They  all  agree  in  ascribing  a  peculiar  sanc- 
tity to  the  number  fourteen.  One  of  their  own  leg- 
islators affimieth,  that  whatever  exceeds  that  number 
'  encroacheth  upon  the  province  of  the  elegy  '  —  vice 
versa,  whatever  '  cometh  short  of  that  number  abut- 
teth  upon  the  premises  of  the  epigram.'  I  have  been 
able  to  discover  but  few  images  in  their  temples, 
which,  like  the  caves  of  Delphos  of  old,  are  famous 
for  giving  echoes.  They  impute  a  religious  importance 
to  the  letter  O,  whether  because  by  its  roundness  it 
is  thought  to  typify  the  moon,  their  principal  goddess, 
or  for  its  analogies  to  their  own  labors,  all  ending 
where  they  began,  or  for  whatever  other  high  and 
mystical  reference,  I  have  never  been  able  to  discover, 
but  I  observe  they  never  begin  their  invocations  to 
their  gods  without  it,  except  indeed  one  insignificant 
sect  among  them,  who  use  the  Doric  A,  pronounced 


180  LETTERS  TO  COLERIDGE. 

like  All !    broad,  instead.       These  boast  to  have  re- 
stored the  old  Dorian  mood.  "  C.  L." 

The  following:  fragment  of  a  letter  about  this  time 
to  Coleridge  refers  to  an  offer  of  Coleridge  to  supply 
Lamb  with  literal  translations  from  the  German,  which 
he  might  versify  for  the  "  Morning  Post,"  for  the  in- 
crease of  Lamb's  slender  income. 


TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Oct.  11th,  1802. 

"  Dear  Coleridge,  —  Your  offer  about  the  German 
poems  is  exceedingly  kind;  but  I  do  not  think  it  a 
wise  speculation,  because  the  time  it  would  take  you 
to  put  them  into  prose  would  be  nearly  as  great  as  if 
you  versified  them.  Indeed  I  am  sure  you  could  do 
the  one  nearly  as  soon  as  the  other ;  so  that  instead  of 
a  division  of  labor,  it  would  be  only  a  multiplication. 
But  I  will  think  of  your  offer  in  another  light.  I  dare 
say  I  could  find  many  things,  of  a  light  nature,  to  suit 
that  paper,  which  you  would  not  object  to  pass  upon 
Stuart  as  your  own,  and  I  should  come  in  for  some 
light  profits,  and  Stuart  think  the  more  highly  of  your 
assiduity.  '  Bishop  Hall's  Characters  '  I  know  nothing 
about,  having  never  seen  them.  But  I  will  reconsid- 
er your  offer,  which  is  very  plausible ;  for  as  to  the 
drudgery  of  going  every  day  to  an  editor  with  my 
scraps,  like  a  peddler,  for  him  to  pick  out  and  tumble 
about  my  ribbons  and  posies,  and  to  wait  in  his  lobby, 
&c.,  no  money  could  make  up  for  the  degradation. 
You  are  in  too  high  request  with  him  to  have  anything 
unpleasant  of  that  sort  to  submit  to. 


LETTERS   TO  COLERIDGE.  181 

[The  letter  refers  to  several  articles  and  books 
which  Lamb  promised  to  send  to  Coleridge,  and 
proceeds :  — ] 

"  You  must  write  me  word  whether  the  '  Miltons ' 
are  worth  paying  carriage  for.  You  have  a  '  Mil- 
ton ; '  but  it  is  pleasanter  to  eat  one's  own  peas  out  of 
one's  own  garden,  than  to  buy  them  by  the  peck  at 
Covent  Garden ;  and  a  book  reads  the  better,  which 
is  our  own,  and  has  been  so  long  known  to  us,  that 
we  know  the  topography  of  its  blots,  and  dog's-ears, 
and  can  trace  the  dirt  in  it  to  having  read  it  at  tea 
with  buttered  muffins,  or  over  a  pipe,  which  I  think  is 
the  maximum.  But,  Coleridge,  you  must  accept  these 
little  things,  and  not  think  of  returning  money  for 
them,  for  I  do  not  set  up  for  a  factor  or  general  agent. 
As  for  fantastic  debts  of  15Z.,  I'll  think  you  were 
dreaming,  and  not  trouble  myself  seriously  to  attend 
to  you.  My  bad  Latin  you  properly  correct ;  but 
natales  for  nates  was  an  inadvertency :  I  knew  better. 
Progrediri^  or  progredi^  I  thought  indifferent,  my  au- 
thority being  Ainsworth.  However,  as  I  have  got  a 
fit  of  Latin,  you  will  now  and  then  indulge  me  with 
an  epistola.  I  pay  the  postage  of  this,  and  propose 
doing  it  by  turns.  In  that  case  I  can  now  and  then 
write  to  you  without  remorse ;  not  that  you  would 
mind  the  money,  but  you  have  not  always  ready 
cash  to  answer  small  demands,  the  epistolarii  7iummi. 
"  Your  '  Epigram  on  the  Sun  and  Moon  in  Ger- 
many '  is  admirable.  Take  'em  all  together,  they  are 
as  good  as  Harx-ington's.  I  will  muster  up  all  the 
conceits  I  can,  and  you  shall  have  a  packet  some  day. 
You  and  I  together  can  answer  all  demands  surely : 


182  LETTERS  TO    COLERIDGE. 

you,  mounted  on  a  terrible  charger,  (like  Homer,  in 
the  '  Battle  of  the  Books,' )  at  the  head  of  the  cav- 
alry :  I  will  lead  the  light-horse.  I  have  just  heard 
from  Stoddart.  Allen  and  he  intend  taking  Keswick 
in  their  way  home.  Allen  wished  particularly  to  have 
it  a  secret  that  he  is  in  Scotland,  and  wrote  to  me  ac- 
cordingly veiy  urgently.  As  luck  was,  I  had  told 
not  above  three  or  four;  but  Mary  had  told  Mrs. 
Green  of  Christ's  Hospital!  For  the  present,  fare- 
well :  never  forgetting  love  to  Pipos  and  his  fi'iends. 

"C.  Lamb." 

The  following  letter  embodies  in  strong  language 
Lamb's  disgust  at  the  rational  mode  of  educating  chil- 
dren. While  he  gave  utterance  to  a  deep  and  hearted 
feeling  of  jealousy  for  the  old  delightful  books  of 
fancy,  which  were  banished  by  the  sense  of  Mrs. 
Barbauld,  he  cherished  great  respect  for  that  lady's 
power  as  a  true  English  prose  writer ;  and  spoke  often 
of  her  "  Essay  on  Inconsistent  Expectations,"  as  alike 
bold  and  original  in  thought  and  elegant  in  style. 


TO   MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  Oct.  23d,  1802. 

"  I  read  daily  your  pohtical  essays.  I  was  particu- 
larly pleased  with  '  Once  a  Jacobin  : '  though  the  argu- 
ment is  obvious  enough,  the  style  was  less  swelling 
than  your  things  sometimes  are,  and  it  was  plausible 
ad  populum.  A  vessel  has  just  arrived  from  Jamaica 
with  the  news  of  poor  Sam  Le  Grice's  death.  He 
died  at  Jamaica  of  the  yellow  fever.  His  course  was 
rapid  and  he  had  been  very  foolish,  but  I  believe  there 


LETTERS  TO  COLERIDGE.  183 

was  more  of  kindness  and  warmth  in  him  than  in  al- 
most any  other  of  our  schoolfellows.  The  annual  meet- 
ing of  the  Blues  is  to-morrow,  at  the  London  Tavern, 
where  poor  Sammy  dined  with  them  two  years  ago, 
and  attracted  the  notice  of  all  by  the  singular  foppish- 
ness of  his  dress.  When  men  go  off  the  stage  so  early, 
it  scarce  seems  a  noticeable  thing  in  their  epitaphs, 
whether  they  had  been  wise  or  silly  in  their  lifetime. 

"  I  am  glad  the  snuff  and  Pipos's  *  books  please. 
'  Goody  Two  Shoes '  is  almost  out  of  print.  Mrs. 
Barbauld's  stuff  has  banished  all  the  old  classics  of 
the  nursery ;  and  the  shopman  at  Newberry's  hardly 
deigned  to  reach  them  off  an  old  exploded  corner  of 
a  shelf,  when  Mary  asked  for  them.  Mrs.  B.'s  and 
Mrs.  Trimmer's  nonsense  lay  in  piles  about.  Knowl- 
edge insignificant  and  vapid  as  Mrs.  B.'s  books  convey, 
it  seems,  must  come  to  a  child  in  the  shape  of  knowl- 
edge, and  his  empty  noddle  must  be  turned  with  con- 
ceit of  his  own  powers  when  he  has  learnt,  that  a  horse 
is  an  animal,  and  Billy  is  better  than  a  horse,  and  such 
like ;  instead  of  that  beautiful  interest  in  wild  tales, 
which  made  the  child  a  man,  while  all  the  time  he  sus- 
pected himself  to  be  no  bigger  than  a  child.  Science 
has  succeeded  to  poetry  no  less  in  the  little  walks  of 
children  than  with  men.  Is  there  no  possibility  of 
averting  this  sore  evil  ?  Think  what  you  would  have 
been  now,  if  instead  of  beino;  fed  with  tales  and  old 
wives'  fables  in  childhood,  you  had  been  crammed  with 
geography  and  natural  history  ! 

"  Hang  them  !  —  I  mean  the  cursed  Barbauld  crew, 
those  blights  and  blasts  of  all  that  is  human  in  man 
and  child. 

*  A  uickname  of  endearment  for  little  Hartley  Coleridge. 


184  LETTERS   TO   COLERIDGE. 

"  As  to  the  translations,  let  me  do  two  or  three  hun- 
dred lines,  and  then  do  you  try  the  nostrums  upon 
Stuart  in  any  way  you  please.  If  they  go  down,  I 
will  bray  more.  In  fact,  if  I  got  or  could  but  get 
50?.  a  year  only,  in  addition  to  what  I  have,  I  should 
live  in  affluence. 

"  Have  you  anticipated  it,  or  could  not  you  give  a 
parallel  of  Bonaparte  with  Cromwell,  particularly  as 
to  the  contrast  in  their  deeds  affecting  foreign  states  ? 
Cromwell's  interference  for  the  Albigenses,  B.'s  ao-ainst 
the  Swiss.  Then  religion  would  come  in  ;  and  Mil- 
ton and  you  could  rant  about  our  countrymen  of  that 
period.  This  is  a  hasty  suggestion,  the  more  hasty 
because  I  want  my  supper.  I  have  just  finished  Chap- 
man's '  Homer.'  Did  you  ever  read  it?  —  it  has  most 
the  continuous  power  of  interesting  you  all  alone,  like 
a  rapid  original,  of  any;  and  in  the  uncommon  ex- 
cellence of  the  more  finished  parts  goes  beyond  Fair- 
fax or  any  of  'em.  The  metre  is  fourteen  syllables, 
and  capable  of  all  sweetness  and  grandeur.  Cowper's 
ponderous  blank  verse  detains  you  every  step  with 
some  heavy  Miltonism  ;  Chapman  gallops  off  with  you 
his  own  free  pace.  Take  a  simile  for  example.  The 
council  breaks  up  — 

'  Being  abroad,  the  earth  was  overlaid 
With  fleckers  to  them,  that  came  forth;  as  when  of  frequent  bees 
Swarms  rise  out  of  a  hollow  rock,  repairing  the  degrees 
Of  their  egression  endlessly,  mth  ever  rising  new 
From  forth  their  sweet  nest;  as  their  store,  still  as  it  faded,  grew 
And  never  would  cease  sending  forth  her  clusters  to  the  spring, 
They  still  crowd  out  so;  this  flock  here,  that  there,  belaboring 
The  loaded  flowers.     So,'  &c.  &c. 

"  What  endless  egression  of  phrases  the  doo-  com- 
mands ! 


LETTERS    TO    COLERIDGE.  185 

"  Take  another,  Agamemnon  wounded,  bearing  his 
womid  heroically  for  the  sake  of  the  army  (look 
below)  to  a  woman  in  labor. 

•  He,  with  his  lance,  sword,  mighty  stones,  pour'd  his  heroic  wreak 

On  othT  squadrons  of  the  foe,  whiles  yet  warm  blood  did  break 

Thro'  his  cleft  veins:  but  when  the  wound  was  quite  exhaust  and  crude, 

The  eager  anguish  did  approve  his  princely  fortitude. 

As  when  most  sharp  and  bitter  pangs  distract  a  laboring  dame. 

Which  the  divine  Ilithiae,  that  rule  the  painful  frame 

Of  human  childbirth,  pour  on  her;  the  Ilithiae  that  are 

The  daughters  of  Saturnia;  with  whose  extreme  repair 

The  woman  in  her  travail  strives  to  take  the  worst  it  gives ; 

With  thought,  it  must  be,  ^iis  hoe's  fruit,  the  end  for  which  she  lives ; 

The  mean  to  make  herself  new  horn,  what  comforts  wiU  redound : 

So,'  &c. 

"  I  will  tell  you  more  about  Chapman  and  his 
peculiarities  in  my  next.  I  am  much  interested  in 
him. 

"  Yours  ever  affectionately,  and  Pipos's, 

"C.  L." 

TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  Nov.  4th,  1802. 

"  Observe,  there  comes  to  you,  by  the  Kendal 
wagon  to-morrow,  the  illustrious  5tli  of  November,  a 
box  containing  the  '  Miltons,'  the  strange  American 
Bible,  with  White's  brief  note,  to  which  you  will 
attend ;  '  Baxter's  Holy  Commonwealth,'  for  which 
you  stand  indebted  to  me  3s.  Od.  ;  an  odd  volume 
of  Montaigne,  bemg  of  no  use  to  me,  I  having  the 
whole ;  certain  books  belono;ing  to  Wordsworth,  as 
do  also  the  strange  thick-hoofed  shoes,  which  are  very 
much  admired  at  in  London.  All  these  sundries  I 
commend  to  your  most  strenuous  looking  after.  If 
you    find  the  '  Miltons '   m    certain   parts  dh-tied  and 


186  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

soiled  with  a  crumb  of  right  Gloucester  blacked  in 
the  candle,  (my  usual  supper,)  or  peradventure  a 
stray  ash  of  tobacco  wafted  into  the  crevices,  look 
to  that  passage  more  especially :  depend  upon  it,  it 
contains  good  matter.  I  have  got  your  little  '  Milton,' 
which,  as  it  contains  '  Salmasius  '  —  and  I  make  a 
rule  of  never  hearing  but  one  side  of  the  question 
(why  should  I  distract  myself  ?)  I  shall  return  to 
you  when  I  pick  up  the  Latina  opera.  The  first 
'  Defence '  is  the  greatest  work  among  them,  because 
it  is  uniformly  great,  and  such  as  is  befitting  the 
very  mouth  of  a  great  nation,  speaking  for  itself. 
But  the  second  '  Defence,'  which  is  but  a  succession 
of  splendid  episodes,  slightly  tied  together,  has  one 
passage,  which,  if  you  have  not  read,  I  conjure  you 
to  lose  no  time,  but  read  it ;  it  is  his  consolations  in 
his  blindness,  which  had  been  made  a  reproach  to 
him.  It  begins  whimsically,  with  poetical  flourishes 
about  Tiresias  and  other  blind  woi'thies,  (which  still 
are  mainly  interesting  as  displaying  his  singular  mind, 
and  in  what  degree  poetry  entered  into  his  daily  soul, 
not  by  fits  and  impulses,  but  engrained  and  innate,) 
but  the  concluding  page,  i.  e.  of  this  passage^  (not  of 
the  '  Defensio,^~)  which  you  will  easily  find,  divested  of 
all  brags  and  flourishes,  gives  so  rational,  so  true  an 
enumeration  of  his  comforts,  so  human,  that  it  can- 
not be  read  without  the  deepest  interest.  Take  one 
touch  of  the  religious  part :  — '  Et  sane  hand  ultima 
Dei  cura  cseci  —  (we  blind  folks,  I  understand  it ;  not 
nos  for  ego')  —  sumus  ;  qui  nos,  quominus  quicquam 
aliud  praeter  ipsum  cernere  valemus,  eo  clementius  at- 
que  benignius  respicere  dignatur.  Vae  qui  illudit  nos, 
vsd  qui  Isedit,  execratione  publica  devovendo ;   nos  ab 


LETTERS   TO    COLERIDGE.  187 

injuriis  hominum  non  modo  incolumes,  sed  pene  sa- 
cros  divina  lex  reddidit,  divinus  favor  :  nee  tarn  oc- 
ulorum  hebetudine  quam  coelestium  alarum  umhrd  has 
nobis  fecisse  tenebras  videtur,  factas  illustrare  rursus 
interiore  ac  louge  preestabiliore  lumine  baud  raro  so- 
let.  Hue  refero,  quod  et  amici  officiosius  nunc  etiam 
quam  solebant,  colunt,  observant,  adsunt ;  quod  et 
nonnuUi  sunt,  quibuscum  Pyladeas  atque  Theseas  al- 
temare  voces  verorum  amicorum  liceat, 

"  Vade  gubernaculum  mei  pedis. 
Da  manum  miuistro  amico. 
Da  coUo  manum  tuam,  ductor  autem  vise  ero  tibi  ego."  ' 

All  this,  and  much  more,  is  highly  pleasing  to  know. 
But  you  may  easily  find  it ;  —  and  I  don't  know  why 
I  put  down  so  many  words  about  it,  but  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  writing  to  you,  and  the  want  of  another  topic. 
"  Yours  ever,  "  C.  Lamb. 

"  To-morrow  I  expect  with  anxiety  S.  T.  C's  letter 
to  Mr.  Fox." 

The  year  1803  passed  without  any  event  to  disturb 
the  dull  current  of  Lamb's  toilsome  life.  He  wrote 
notliing  this  year,  except  some  newspaper  squibs,  and 
the  delightful  little  poem  on  the  death  of  Hester  Sa- 
vory. This  he  sent  to  Manning  at  Paris,  with  the 
following  account  of  its  subject :  — 

"  Dear  Manning,  I  send  you  some  verses  I  have 
made  on  the  death  of  a  young  Quaker  you  may  have 
heard  me  speak  of  as  being  in  love  with  for  some 
years  while  I  lived  at  Pentonville,  though  I  had  never 
spoken  to  her  in  my  life.     She  died  about  a  month 


188  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

since.  If  you  have  interest  with  the  Abb^  de  Lisle, 
you  may  get  'em  translated :  he  has  done  as  much  for 
the  Georgics." 

The  verses  must  have  been  written  in  the  very  hap- 
piest of  Lamb's  serious  mood.  I  cannot  refrain  from 
the  luxury  of  quoting  the  conclusion,  though  many 
readers  have  it  by  heart. 

"  My  sprightly  neighbor,  gone  before 
To  that  unknown  and  silent  shore  ! 
Shall  we  not  meet  as  heretofore, 

Some  summer  morning. 

When  from  thy  cheerful  ej'es  a  ray 
Hath  struck  a  bliss  upon  the  day, 
A  bliss  that  would  not  go  away, 

A  sweet  forewarning?  " 

The  following  letters  were  written  to  Manning,  at 
Paris,  while  still  haunted  with  the  idea  of  oriental  ad- 
venture. 


TO   MR.   MANNING. 

"  Feb.  19th,  1803. 

"  My  dear  Manning,  —  The  general  scope  of  your 
letter  afforded  no  indications  of  insanity,  but  some 
particular  points  raised  a  scruple.  For  God's  sake 
don't  think  any  more  of '  Independent  Tartary.'  What 
are  you  to  do  among  such  Ethiopians  ?  Is  there  no 
lineal  descendant  of  Prester  John  ?  Is  the  chair 
empty  ?  Is  the  sword  unswayed  ?  —  depend  upon  it 
they'll  never  make  you  their  king  as  long  as  any 
branch  of  that  great  stock  is  remaining.  I  tremble 
for  your  Christianity.     They  wiU  certainly  circumcise 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  189 

you.  Read  Sir  John  Mandeville's  travels  to  cure 
you,  or  come  over  to  England.  There  is  a  Tartar- 
man  now  exhibiting  at  Exeter  Change.  Come  and 
talk  with  him,  and  hear  what  he  says  first.  Indeed, 
he  is  no  very  favorable  specimen  of  his  countrymen ! 
But  perhaps  the  best  thing  you  can  do,  is  to  try  to 
get  the  idea  out  of  your  head.  For  this  purpose 
repeat  to  yourself  every  night,  after  you  have  said 
your  prayers,  the  words  Independent  Tartary,  Inde- 
pendent Tartary,  two  or  three  times,  and  associate 
with  them  the  idea  of  oblivion^  ('tis  Hartley's  method 
with  obstinate  memories,)  or  say.  Independent,  In- 
dependent, have  I  not  already  got  an  independence? 
That  was  a  clever  way  of  the  old  puritans,  pun-di- 
vinity. My  dear  friend,  think  what  a  sad  pity  it 
would  be  to  bury  such  parts  in  heathen  countries, 
among  nasty,  unconversable,  horse-belchmg,  Tartar- 
people  !  Some  say  they  are  Cannibals ;  and  then, 
conceive  a  Tartar-fellow  eating  my  Mend,  and  adding 
the  cool  malignity  of  mustard  and  vinegar !  I  am 
afraid  'tis  the  reading  of  Chaucer  has  misled  you  ; 
his  foolish  stories  about  Cambuscan,  and  the  ring, 
and  the  horse  of  brass.  Believe  me,  there  are  no 
such  things,  'tis  all  the  poet's  invention;  but  if  there 
were  such  darling  things  as  old  Chaucer  sings,  I 
would  up  behind  you  on  the  horse  of  brass,  and  frisk 
off  for  Prester  John's  country.  But  these  are  all  tales  ; 
a  horse  of  brass  never  flew,  and  a  king's  daughter 
never  talked  with  birds  !  The  Tartars,  really,  are  a 
cold,  insipid,  smouchy  set.  You'll  be  sadly  moped 
(if  you  are  not  eaten)  among  them.  Pray  try  and 
cure  yourself.  Take  hellebore  (the  counsel  is  Hor- 
ace's, 'twas  none  of  my  thought  originally^.     Shave 


190  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

yourself  oftener.  Eat  no  saffron,  for  saffron-eaters 
contract  a  terrible  Tartar-like  yellow.  Pray,  to  avoid 
the  fiend.  Eat  notliino;  that  mves  the 'heart-burn. 
Shave  the  upper  Up.  Go  about  like  an  European. 
Read  no  books  of  voyages  (the}''  are  nothing  but 
lies),  only  now  and  then  a  romance,  to  keep  the 
fancy  under.  Above  all,  don't  go  to  any  sights  of 
wild  beasts.  That  has  been  your  ruin.  Accustom 
yourself  to  write  familiar  letters,  on  common  subjects, 
to  your  friends  in  England,  such  as  are  of  a  moder- 
ate understanding.  And  think  about  common  things 
more.  I  supped  last  night  with  Rickman,  and  met 
a  merry  natural  captain,  who  pleases  himself  vastly 
with  once  having  made  a  pun  at  Otaheite  in  the  O. 
language.*  'Tis  the  same  man  who  said  Shakspeare 
he  liked,  because  he  was  so  much  of  the  gentleman. 
Rickman  is  a  man  '  absolute  in  all  numbers.'  I  think 
I  may  one  day  bring  you  acquainted,  if  you  do  not 
go  to  Tartary  first ;  for  you'll  never  come  back. 
Have  a  care,  my  dear  friend,  of  Anthropophagi !  their 
stomachs  are  always  craving.  'Tis  terrible  to  be 
weighed  out  at  fivepence  a  pound.  To  sit  at  table 
(the  reverse  of  fishes  in  Holland),  not  as  a  guest, 
but  as  a  meat. 

"  God  bless  you :  do  come  to  England.  Air  and 
exercise  may  do  great  things.  Talk  with  some  min- 
ister.    Why  not  your  father? 

"God  dispose  all  for  the  best.  I  have  discharged 
my  duty. 

"  Your  sincere  friend,  C.  Lamb.' 

*  Captain,  afterwards  Admiral  Burney,  who  became  one  of  the  most 
constant  attendants  on  Lamb's  parties,  and  whose  son,  Martin,  grew  up  in 
his  strongest  regard,  and  received  the  honor  of  the  dedication  of  the  sec- 
ond volume  of  his  works. 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  191 


TO  MR.   MANNING. 


"  Not  a  sentence,  not  a  syllable  of  Trismegistus, 
shall  be  lost  through  my  neglect.  I  am  his  word- 
banker,  his  storekeeper  of  puns  and  syllogisms.  You 
cannot  conceive  (and  if  Trismegistus  cannot,  no  man 
can)  the  strange  joy  which  I  felt  at  the  receipt  of  a 
letter  from  Paris.  It  seemed  to  give  me  a  learned 
importance,  which  placed  me  above  all  who  had  not 
Parisian  correspondents.  Believe  that  I  shall  carefully 
husband  every  scrap,  which  will  save  you  the  trouble 
of  memoiy,  when  you  come  back.  You  cannot  write 
things  so  trifling,  let  them  only  be  about  Paris,  which 
I  shall  not  treasure.  In  particular,  I  must  have  par- 
allels of  actors  and  actresses.  I  must  be  told  if  any 
building  in  Pai'is  is  at  all  comparable  to  St.  Paul's, 
which,  contrary  to  the  usual  mode  of  that  part  of  our 
nature  called  admiration,  I  have  looked  up  to  with  un- 
fading wonder,  every  morning  at  ten  o'clock,  ever  since 
it  has  lain  in  my  way  to  business.  At  noon  I  casually 
glance  upon  it,  being  hungry ;  and  hunger  has  not 
much  taste  for  the  fine  arts.  Is  any  night-walk  com- 
parable to  a  walk  from  St.  Paul's  to  Charing  Cross,  for 
lighting,  and  paving,  crowds  going  and  coming  with- 
out respite,  the  rattle  of  coaches,  and  the  cheerftilness 
of  shops  ?  Have  you  seen  a  man  guillotined  yet  ?  is  it 
as  good  as  hanging?  are  the  women  all  painted,  and 
the  men  all  monkeys  ?  or  are  there  not  a  fetv  that  look 
like  rational  of  both  sexes  ?  Are  you  and  the  first  con- 
sul thick?  All  this  expense  of  ink  I  may  fairly  put  you 
to,  as  your  letters  will  not  be  solely  for  my  ^^rojjer 
pleasure ;  but  are  to  serve  as  memoranda  and  notices, 
helps  for  short  memory,  a  kind  of  Rumfordizing  recol- 


192  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

lection,  for  yourself  on  your  return.  Your  letter  was 
just  wliat  a  letter  should  be,  crammed,  and  very  funny. 
Every  part  of  it  pleased  me  till  you  came  to  Paris, 
and  your  philosopliical  indolence,  or  indifference,  stung 
me.  You  cannot  stir  from  your  rooms  till  you  know 
the  language  !  what  the  devil !  are  men  nothing  but 
word-trumpets?  are  men  all  tongue  and  ear?  have 
these  creatures,  that  you  and  I  profess  to  know  some- 
thing about,  no  faces,  gestures,  gabble,  no  folly,  no 
absurdity,  no  induction  of  French  education  upon  the 
abstract  idea  of  men  and  women,  no  similitude  nor 
dissimilitude  to  English !  Why !  thou  cursed  Smell- 
fungus  !  your  account  of  your  landing  and  reception, 
and  Bullen  (I  forget  how  you  spell  it,  it  was  spelt  my 
way  in  Harry  the  Eighth's  time),  was  exactly  in  that 
minute  style  which  strong  impressions  inspire  (writ- 
ing to  a  Frenchman,  I  write  as  a  Frenchman  would). 
It  appears  to  me,  as  if  I  should  die  with  joy  at  the 
first  landing  in  a  foreign  country.  It  is  the  nearest 
pleasure,  which  a  grown  man  can  substitute  for  that 
unknown  one,  which  he  can  never  know,  the  pleasure 
of  the  first  entrance  into  life  from  the  womb.  I  dare 
say,  in  a  short  time,  my  habits  would  come  back  like  a 
'  stronger  man '  armed,  and  drive  out  that  new  pleas- 
ure; and  I  should  soon  sicken  for  known  objects. 
Nothing  has  transpired  here  that  seems  to  me  of  suflfi- 
cient  importance  to  send  dry-shod  over  the  water :  but 
I  suppose  you  will  want  to  be  told  some  news.  The 
best  and  the  worst  to  me  is,  that  I  have  given  up  two 
guineas  a  week  at  the  '  Post,'  and  regained  my  health 
and  spirits,  which  were  upon  the  wane.  I  grew  sick 
and  Stuart  unsatisfied.  Ludisti  satis,  tempus  ahire  est ; 
I  must  cut  closer,  that's  all.     Mister  Fell,  or  as  you. 


LETTERS  TO   MANNING.  193 

with  your  usual  facetiousness  and  drollery,  call  him 
Mr.  F-}-ll  has  stopped  short  in  the  middle  of  his  play. 
Some  friend  has  told  him  that  it  has  not  the  least 
merit  in  it.  O  !  that  I  had  the  rectifying  of  the  Lit- 
any !  I  would  put  in  a  libera  7ios  (^Scriptores  videlicet^ 
ah  amicis !  That's  all  the  news.  A  propos  (is  it 
pedantry,  writing  to  a  Frenchman,  to  express  myself 
sometimes  by  a  French  word,  when  an  English  one 
would  not  do  as  well  ?  methinks,  my  thoughts  fall 
naturally  into  it)  — 

«C.  L." 

TO   MR.   MANNING. 

"  My  dear  Manning,  —  Although  something  of  the 
latest,  and  after  two  months'  waiting,  your  letter  was 
highly  gi-atifying.  Some  parts  want  a  little  explica- 
tion ;  for  example,  '  the  god-like  face  of  the  first  con- 
sul.' W7mt  god  does  he  most  resemble.  Mars,  Bac- 
chus, or  Apollo  ?  or  the  god  Serapis,  who,  flying 
(as  Egyptian  chronicles  deliver)  from  the  fury  of  the 
dog  Anubis  (the  hieroglyph  of  an  English  mastiff), 
hghted  upon  Monomotapa  (or  the  land  of  apes),  by 
some  thought  to  be  Old  France,  and  there  set  up  a 
tyranny,  &c.  Our  London  prints  of  him  represent  him 
gloomy  and  sulfy,  like  an  angry  Jupiter.  I  hear  that 
he  is  very  small,  even  less  than  me.  I  envy  you  your 
access  to  this  great  man,  much  more  than  your  stances 
and  conversaziones,  which  I  have  a  shrewd  suspicion 
must  be  something  dull.  What  you  assert  concerning 
the  actors  of  Paris,  that  they  exceed  our  comedians, 
bad  as  ours  are,  is  impossible.  In  one  sense  it  may  be 
true,  that  their  fine  gentlemen,  in  what  is  called  gen- 
teel  comedy,  may  possibly  be  more  brisk  and  degagi 

VOL.   I.  13 


10-4  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

than  Mr.  Caiilfield,  or  Mr.  Wliitfield ;  but  liave  any  of 
them  the  power  to  move  lauyhter  in  excess  ?  or  can  a 
Frenchman  laugh  ?  Can  they  batter  at  your  judicious 
ribs  till  they  shake,  nothing  loth  to  be  so  shaken  ? 
This  is  John  Bull's  criterion,  and  it  shall  be  mine. 
You  are  Frenchified.  Both  your  taste  and  morals  are 
corrupt  and  perverted.  By-and-by  you  will  come  to 
assert,  that  Buonaparte  is  as  great  a  general  as  the  old 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  and  deny  that  one  Englishman 
can  beat  three  Frenchmen.  Read  Henry  the  Fifth  to 
restore  your  orthodoxy.  All  things  continue  at  a  stay- 
still  in  London.  I  cannot  repay  your  new  novelties 
with  my  stale  reminiscences.  Like  the  prodigal,  I 
have  spent  my  patrimony,  and  feed  upon  the  superan- 
nuated chaff  and  dry  husks  of  repentance ;  yet  some- 
times I  remember  with  pleasure  the  hounds  and  horses, 
which  I  kept  in  the  days  of  my  prodigality.  I  find 
nothing  new,  nor  anything  that  has  so  much  of  the 
gloss  and  dazzle  of  novelty,  as  may  rebound  in  narra- 
tive, and  cast  a  reflective  glimmer  across  the  channel. 
Did  I  send  you  an  epitaph  I  scribbled,  upon  a  poor  girl 
who  died  at  nineteen,  a  good  girl,  and  a  pretty  girl, 
and  a  clever  girl,  but  strangely  neglected  by  all  her 
friends  and  kin  ? 

'  Under  this  cold  marble  stone 
Sleep  the  sad  remains  of  one 
Who,  when  alive,  by  few  or  none 
Was  loved,  as  loved  she  might  have  been, 
If  she  prosperous  days  had  seen, 
Or  had  thriving  been,  I  ween. 
Only  this  cold  funeral  stone 
Tells  she  was  beloved  by  one. 
Who  on  the  marble  graves  his  moan.' 

"  Brief  and  pretty,  and  tender,  is  it  not  ?     I  send 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  195 

you  this,  being  the  only  piece  of  poetry  I  have  done^ 
since  the  muses  all  went  with  T.  M.  to  Paris.  I 
have  neither  stuff  in  my  brain,  nor  paper  in  my 
drawer,  to  write  you  a  longer  letter.  Liquor,  and 
company,  and  wicked  tobacco,  a'nights,  have  quite 
dispeiicraniated  me,  as  one  may  say ;  but  you,  who 
spiritualize  upon  Champagne,  may  continue  to  write 
long  long  letters,  and  stuff  'era  with  amusement  to 
the  end.  Too  long  they  cannot  be,  any  more  than 
a  codicil  to  a  will,  which  leaves  me  sundry  parks 
and  manors  not  specified  in  the  deed.  But  don't 
be  two  months  before  you  write  again.  —  These  from 
merry  old  England,  on  the  day  of  her  valiant  patron 
St.  George.  "  C.  Lamb." 


CHAPTER  vrn. 

[1804  to  1806.] 


LETTERS    TO    MANNING,    WORDSWORTH,    RICKMAN,    AND     HAZ- 
LITT.  —  "  MR.  .H."   WRITTEN,  —  ACCEPTED,  —  DAMNED. 

There  is  no  vestige  of  Lamb's  correspondence  in 
the  year  1804,  nor  does  he  seem  to  have  written  for 
the  press.  This  year,  however,  added  to  his  list  of 
friends  —  one  in  whose  conversation  he  took  great 
delight,  until  death  severed  them  —  William  Hazlitt. 
This  remarkable  metaphysician  and  critic  had  then 
just  completed  liis  first  work,  the  "  Essay  on  the 
Principles  of  Human   Action,"  but  had  not  entirely 


196  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

given  up  his  hope  of  excelling  as  a  painter.  After 
a  professional  tour  through  part  of  England,  during 
which  he  satisfied  his  sitters  better  than  himself,  he 
remained  some  time  at  the  house  of  his  brother,  then 
practising  as  a  portrait-painter  with  considerable  suc- 
cess ;  and  while  endeavoring  to  procure  a  publisher 
for  his  work,  painted  a  portrait  of  Lamb,  of  which 
an  engraving  is  prefixed  to  the  present  volume.*  It 
is  one  of  the  last  of  Hazlitt's  efforts  in  an  art  which 
he  afterwards  illustrated  with  the  most  exquisite  crit- 
icism which  the  knowledge  and  love  of  it  could  in- 
spire. 

Among  the  vestiges  of  the  early  part  of  1805,  are 
the  four  following  letters  to  Manning.  If  the  hero 
of  the  next  letter,  Mr.  Richard  Hopkins,  is  living,  I 
trust  he  will  not  repine  at  being  ranked  with  those 

who 

"  Do  good  by  stealth,  and  blush  to  find  it  fame." 


TO   MR.   MANNING. 

"  16,  Mitre-court  Buildings, 

"  Saturday,  24th  Feb.  1805. 

"Dear  Manning,  —  I  have  been  very  unwell  since 
I  saw  you.  A  sad  depression  of  spirits,  a  most  un- 
accountable nervousness  ;  from  which  I  have  been  par- 
tially relieved  by  an  odd  accident.  You  knew  Dick 
Hopkins,  the  swearing  scullion  of  Caius  ?  This  fel- 
low, by  industry  and  agility,  has  thrust  himself  into 
the  important  situations  (no  sinecures,  believe  me) 
of  cook  to  Trinity  Hall  and  Caius  College :  and  the 
generous  creature  has  contrived,  with  the  greatest 
delicacy  imaginable,   to  send  me  a  present  of  Cam- 

*  Edition,  1837. 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  197 

bridge  brawn.  What  makes  it  the  more  extraordi- 
nary  is,  that  the  man  never  saw  me  in  his  hfe  that 
I  know  of.  I  suppose  he  has  heard  of  me.  I  did 
not  immediately  recognize  the  donor ;  but  one  of 
Richard's  cards,  which  had  accidentally  fallen  into 
the  straw,  detected  him  in  a  moment.  Dick,  you 
know,  was  always  remarkable  for  flourishing.  His 
card  imports,  that  '  orders  (to  wit,  for  brawn)  from 
any  part  of  England,  Scotland,  or  L'eland,  will  be 
duly  executed,'  &c.  At  first,  I  thought  of  declining 
the  present ;  but  Richard  knew  my  blind  side  when 
he  pitched  upon  brawn.  'Tis  of  all  my  hobbies  the 
supreme  in  the  eating  way.  He  might  have  sent 
sops  from  the  pan,  skimmings,  crumpets,  chips,  hog's 
lard,  the  tender  brown  judiciously  scalped  from  a  fil- 
let of  veal  (dexterously  replaced  by  a  salamander), 
the  tops  of  asparagus,  fugitive  livers,  runaway  giz- 
zards of  fowls,  the  eyes  of  martyred  pigs,  tender  effu- 
sions of  laxative  woodcocks,  the  red  spawn  of  lobsters, 
leveret's  ears,  and  such  pretty  filchings  common  to 
cooks ;  but  these  had  been  ordinary  presents,  the  ev- 
eryday com'tesies  of  dish-washers  to  their  sweethearts. 
Brawn  was  a  noble  thought.  It  is  not  every  com- 
mon gullet-fancier  that  can  properly  esteem  it.  It 
is  hke  a  picture  of  one  of  the  choice  old  Itahan  mas- 
ters. Its  gusto  is  of  that  hidden  sort.  As  Words- 
worth sings  of  a  modest  poet,  — '  you  must  love  him, 
ere  to  you  he  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love  ; '  so 
brawn,  you  must  taste  it  ere  to  you  it  will  seem  to 
have  any  taste  at  all.  But  'tis  nuts  to  the  adept : 
those  that  will  send  out  their  tongue  and  feelers  to 
find  it  out.  It  will  be  wooed,  and  not  unsought  be 
won.     Now,  ham-essence,  lobsters,  turtle,  such  popu- 


198  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

]ar  millions,  absolutely  court  you^  lay  themselves  out 
to  strike  you  at  first  smack,  like  one  of  David's  pic- 
tures (they  call  him  Darveed},  compared  with  the 
plain  russet-coated  wealth  of  a  Titian  or  a  Correggio, 
as  I  illustrated  above.  Such  are  the  obvious  glaring 
heathen  virtues  of  a  corporation  dinner,  compared  with 
the  reserved  collegiate  worth  of  brawn.  Do  me  the 
favor  to  leave  off  the  business  which  you  may  be  at 
present  upon,  and  go  immediately  to  the  kitchens  of 
Trinity  and  Caius,  and  make  my  most  respectfiil  com- 
pliments to  Mr.  Richard  Hopkins,  and  assure  him  that 
his  brawn  is  most  excellent;  and  that  I  am  moreover 
obliged  to  him  for  his  innuendo  about  salt  water  and 
bran,  which  I  shall  not  fail  to  improve.  I  leave  it 
to  you  whether  you  shall  choose  to  pay  him  the  civil- 
ity of  asking  him  to  dinner  while  you  stay  in  Cam- 
bridge, or  in  whatever  other  way  you  may  best  hke  to 
show  your  gratitude  to  fiiy  friend.  Richard  Hopkins, 
considered  in  many  points  of  view,  is  a  very  extraor- 
dinary character.  Adieu :  I  hope  to  see  you  to  sup- 
per in  London  soon,  where  we  will  taste  Richard's 
brawn,  and  drink  his  health  in  a  cheerful  but  mod- 
erate cup.  We  have  not  many  such  men  in  any 
rank  of  life  as  Mr.  R.  Hopkins.  Crisp,  the  barber, 
of  St.  Mary's,  was  just  such  another.  I  wonder  he 
never  sent  me  any  little  token,  some  chesnuts,  or  a 
puff,  or  two  pound  of  hair :  just  to  remember  him 
by.  Gifts  are  like  nails.  Praesens  ut  absens :  that 
is,  your  present  makes  amends  for  your  absence. 

"  Yours,  C.  Lamb." 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  199 

TO    MR.   MANNING. 

"  Dear  Archimedes,  —  Things  have  gone  on  badly 
with  thy  ungeometrical  friend;  but  they  are  on  the 
turn.  My  old  housekeeper  has  shown  signs  of  conva- 
lescence, and  will  shortly  resume  the  power  of  the 
keys,  so  I  sha'n't  be  cheated  of  my  tea  and  Hquors. 
Wind  in  the  west,  which  promotes  tranquillity.  Have 
leisure  now  to  anticipate  seeing  thee  again.  Have 
been  taking  leave  of  tobacco  in  a  rhyming  address. 
Had  thought  that  vein  had  long  since  closed  up.  Find 
I  can  rhyme  and  reason  too.  Think  of  studying 
mathematics,  to  restrain  the  fire  of  my  genius,  which 
G.  D.  recommends.  Have  frequent  bleedings  at  the 
nose,  which  shows  plethoric.  Maybe  shall  tiy  the  sea 
myself,  that  great  scene  of  wonders.  Got  incredibly 
sober  and  regular ;  shave  oftener,  and  hum  a  tune,  to 
signify  cheerfulness  and  gallantry. 

"  Suddenly  disposed  to  sleep,  having  taken  a  quart 
of  peas  with  bacon,  and  stout.  Will  not  refuse  Na- 
ture, who  has  done  such  things  for  me ! 

"  Nurse !  don't  call  me  unless  Mr  Manning  comes. 
—  What !  the  gentleman  in  spectacles  ?  —  Yes. 

"  Dormit.  C.  L." 

"  Saturday, 

"  Hot  Noon." 


TO   MR.  MANNING. 

"  Dear  Manning,  —  I  sent  to  Brown's  immediately. 
Mr.  Brown  (or  Pijou,  as  he  is  called  by  the  moderns) 
denied  the  having  received  a  letter  from  you.  The 
one  for  you  he  remembered  receiving,  and   remitting 


200  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

to  Leadenliall  Street ;  whither  I  immediately  posted 
(it  being  the  middle  of  dinner),  my  teeth  unpicked. 
There  I  learned  that  if  you  want  a  letter  set  right, 
you  must  apply  at  the  first  door  on  the  left  hand  be- 
fore one  o'clock.  I  returned  and  picked  my  teeth. 
And  this  morning  I  made  my  application  in  form,  and 
have  seen  the  vagabond  letter,  which  most  likely  ac- 
companies this.  If  it  does  not,  I  will  get  Rickman 
to  name  it  to  the  Speaker,  who  will  not  fail  to  lay 
the  matter  before  Parliament  the  next  sessions,  when 
you  may  be  sure  to  have  all  abuses  in  the  Post  De- 
partment rectified. 

"  N.  B.  There  seems  to  be  some  informality  epi- 
demical. You  direct  yours  to  me  in  Mitre  Court; 
my  true  address  is  Mitre  Court  Buildings.  By  the 
pleasantries  of  Fortune,  who  likes  a  joke  or  a  double 
entendre  as  well  as  the  best  of  us  her  children,  there 
happens  to  be  another  Mr.  Lamb  (that  there  should 
be  two ! !)  in  Mitre  Court. 

"  Farewell,  and  think  upon  it.  C.  L." 


TO  MR.   MANNING. 

"Dear  Manning,  —  Certainly  you  could  not  have 
called  at  all  hours  from  two  till  ten,  for  we  have  been 
only  out  of  an  evening  Monday  and  Tuesday  in  this 
week.  But  if  you  think  you  have,  your  thought  shall 
go  for  the  deed.  We  did  pray  for  you  on  Wednes- 
day night.  Oysters  unusually  luscious  —  pearls  of 
extraordinary  magnitude  found  in  them.  I  have  made 
bracelets  of  them  —  given  them  in  clusters  to  ladies. 
Last  night  we  went  out  in  despite,  because  you  were 
not  come  at  your  hour. 


LETTER  TO   MISS  WORDSWORTH.  201 

"  This  niffht  we  shall  be  at  home,  so  shall  we  cer- 
es 

tainly  both  Sunday,  Monday,  Tuesday,  and  Wednes- 
day. Take  your  choice,  mind  I  don't  say  of  one  :  but 
choose  which  evening  you  will  not,  and  come  the  other 
four.  Doors  open  at  five  o'clock.  Shells  forced  about 
nine.     Every  gentleman  smokes  or  not  as  he  pleases. 

"C.  L. 


5? 


During  the  last  five  years,  tobacco  had  been  at  once 
Lamb's  solace  and  his  bane.  In  the  hope  of  resisting 
the  temptation  of  late  conviviality  to  which  it  minis- 
tered, he  formed  a  resolution,  the  virtue  of  which  can 
be  but  dimly  guessed,  to  abandon  its  use,  and  embodied 
the  floating  fancies  which  had  attended  on  his  long 
wavering  in  one  of  the  richest  of  his  poems — "The 
Farewell  to  Tobacco."  After  many  struggles  he  di- 
vorced himself  from  his  genial  enemy ;  and  though  he 
afterwards  renewed  acquaintance  with  milder  dalliance, 
he  ultimately  abandoned  it,  and  was  guiltless  of  a  pipe 
in  his  later  years.  The  following  letter,  addressed 
while  his  sister  was  laid  up  with  severe  and  pro- 
tracted illness,  will  show  his  feehngs  at  this  time.  Its 
affecting  self-upbraidings  refer  to  no  greater  failings 
than  the  social  indulgences  against  which  he  was 
manfully  struggling. 


TO   MISS    WORDSWORTH. 

"  14tli  June,  1805. 

"  My  dear  Miss  "Wordsworth,  —  I  have  every  reason 
to  suppose  that  this  illness,  like  all  Mary's  former  ones, 
will  be  but  temporary.  But  I  cannot  always  feel  so. 
Meantime  she  is  dead  to  me,  and  I  miss  a  prop.     All 


202  LETTER   TO    MISS    WORDSWORTH. 

my  strength  is  gone,  and  I  am  like  a  fool,  bereft  of 
her  cooperation.  I  dare  not  think,  lest  I  should  think 
wrong ;  so  used  am  I  to  look  up  to  her  in  the  least 
and  the  biggest  perplexity.  To  say  all  that  I  know  of 
her  wpuld  be  more  than  I  think  anybody  could  believe 
or  even  understand ;  and  when  I  hope  to  have  her 
well  again  with  me,  it  would  be  sinning  against  her 
feelings  to  go  about  to  praise  her;  for  I  can  conceal 
nothing  that  I  do  from  her.  She  is  older,  and  wiser, 
and  better  than  me,  and  all  my  wretched  imperfections 
I  cover  to  myself  by  resolutely  thinking  on  her  good- 
ness. She  would  share  life  and  death,  heaven  and 
hell,  with  me.  She  lives  but  for  me ;  and  I  know  I 
have  been  wasting  and  teasing  her  Hfe  for  five  years 
past  incessantly  with  my  cursed  ways  of  going  on. 
But  even  in  this  upbi'aiding  of  myself,  I  am  offending 
against  her,  for  I  know  that  she  has  cleaved  to  me  for 
better,  for  worse ;  and  if  the  balance  has  been  against 
her  hitherto,  it  was  a  noble  trade.  I  am  stupid,  and 
lose  myself  in  what  I  write.  I  write  rather  what  an- 
swers to  my  feelings  (which  are  sometimes  sharp 
enough)  than  express  my  present  ones,  for  I  am  only 
flat  and  stupid. 

"  I  cannot  resist  transcribing  three  or  four  lines 
which  poor  Mary  made  upon  a  picture  (a  Holy  Fam- 
ily) which  we  saw  at  an  auction  only  one  week  before 
she  left  home.  They  are  sweet  lines  and  upon  a  sweet 
picture.  But  I  send  them  only  as  the  last  memorial 
of  her. 


'virgin   and   child,   L.    da   VINCI. 

'  Maternal  Lady  with  thy  virgin-grace, 
Heaven-born,  thy  Jesus  seemeth  sure. 


LETTER  TO   MISS   WORDSWORTH.  203 

And  thou  a  virgin  pure. 

Lady  most  perfect,  when  thy  angel  face 

Men  look  upon,  they  wish  to  be 

A  Catholic,  Madonna  fair,  to  worship  thee.' 

"  You  had  her  hnes  about  the  '  Lady  Blanch.'  You 
have  not  had  some  which  she  wrote  upon  a  copy  of  a 
girl  from  Titian,  which  I  had  hung  up  where  that 
print  of  Blanch  and  the  Abbess  (as  she  beautifully 
interpreted  two  female  figures  from  L.  da  Vinci)  had 
hung  in  our  room.     'Tis  light  and  pretty. 

'  Who  art  thou,  fair  one,  who  usurp'st  the  place 
Of  Blanch,  the  lady  of  the  matchless  grace  ? 
ComS,  fair  and  pretty  tell  to  me 
Who  in  thy  lifetime  thou  mightst  be  ? 
Thou  pretty  art  and  fair, 

But  with  the  Lady  Blanch  thou  never  must  compare. 
No  need  for  Blanch  her  history  to  tell. 
Whoever  saw  her  face,  they  there  did  read  it  well  ; 
But  when  I  loolt  on  thee,  I  only  know 
There  lived  a  pretty  maid  some  hundred  years  ago.' 

"  This  is  a  little  unfair,  to  tell  so  much  about  our- 
selves, and  to  advert  so  little  to  your  letter,  so  fidl  of 
comfortable  tidings  of  you  all.  But  my  own  cares 
press  pretty  close  upon  me,  and  you  can  make  allow- 
ance. That  you  may  go  on  gathering  strength  and 
peace  is  the  next  wish  to  Mary's  recovery. 

"  I  had  almost  forgot  your  repeated  in\'itation. 
Supposing  that  Mary  will  be  well  and  able,  there  is 
another  ability  which  you  may  guess  at,  which  I  can- 
not promise  myself.  In  prudence  we  ought  not  to 
come.  This  illness  will  make  it  still  more  prudential 
to  wait.  It  is  not  a  balance  of  this  way  of  spending 
our  money  against  another  way,  but  an  absolute  ques- 
tion of  whether  we  shall  stop  now,  or  go  on  wasting 


204  LETTER   TO   MR.   AND   MISS   WORDSWORTH. 

awaj  the  little  we  have  got  beforehand.  My  best 
love,  however,  to  you  all ;  and  to  that  most  friendly 
creature,  Mrs.  Clarkson,  and  better  health  to  her, 
when  you  see  or  write  to  her. 

"  Charles  Lamb." 

The  "  Farewell  to  Tobacco "  was  shortly  after 
transmitted  to  Mr.  and  Miss  Wordsworth  with  the 
followino; :  — 


TO   MR.   AND  MISS   WORDSWORTH. 

"  Sept.  28th,  1805. 

"  I  wish  you  may  think  this  a  handsome  farewell 
to  my  '  Friendly  Traitress.'  Tobacco  has  been  my 
evening  comfort  and  my  morning  curse  for  these  five 
years ;  and  you  know  how  difficult  it  is  from  refrain- 
ing to  pick  one's  lips  even,  when  it  has  become  a 
habit.  This  poem  is  the  only  one  which  I  have  finish- 
ed since  so  long  as  when  I  wrote  '  Hester  Savory.' 
I  have  had  it  in  my  head  to  do  it  these  two  years,  but 
tobacco  stood  in  its  own  light  when  it  gave  me  head- 
aches that  prevented  my  singing  its  praises.  Now  you 
have  got  it,  you  have  got  all  my  store,  for  I  have 
absolutely  not  another  line.  No  more  has  Mary.  We 
have  nobody  about  us  that  cares  for  poetry,  and  who 
will  rear  grapes  when  he  shall  be  the  sole  eater  ? 
Perhaps  if  you  encourage  us  to  show  you  what  we  may 
write,  we  may  do  something  now  and  then  before  we 
absolutely  forget  the  quantity  of  an  English  line  for 
want  of  practice.  The  '  Tobacco,'  being  a  little  in 
the  way  of  Withers  (whom  Southey  so  much  likes), 
perhaps  you  will  somehow  convey  it  to  him  with  my 


LETTERS   TO   HAZLITT.  205 

kind  remembrances.     Then,  everybody  will  have  seen 
it  that  I  wish  to  see  it,  I  having  sent  it  to  Malta. 
"  I  remain,  dear  W.  and  D,,  yours  truly, 

"C.  Lamb." 


The  following  letter  to  Hazlitt  bears  date  18th  Nov. 
1805  :  — 


TO  MR.  HAZLTTT. 

"  Dear  Hazlitt,  —  I  was  very  glad  to  hear  from  you, 
and  that  your  journey  was  so  picturesque.  We  miss 
you,  as  we  foi'etold  we  should.  One  or  two  things 
have  happened,  which  are  beneath  the  dignity  of  epis- 
tolary communication,  but  which,  seated  about  our  fire- 
side at  night,  (the  winter  hands  of  pork  have  begun,) 
gesture  and  emphasis  might  have  talked  into  some  im- 
portance.    Something  about 's  Avife ;  for  instance, 

how  tall  she  is,  and  that  she  visits  j)ranked  up  like  a 
Queen  of  the  May,  with  green  streamers :  a  good- 
natured  woman  though,  which  is  as  much  as  you  can 
expect  from  a  friends  wife,  whom  you  got  acquainted 
with  a  bachelor.  Some  things  too  about  Monkey,* 
which  can't  so  well  be  written :  how  it  set  up  for  a 
fine  lady,  and  thought  it  had  got  lovers,  and  was 
obliged  to  be  convinced  of  its  age  from  the  parish  reg- 
ister, where  it  was  proved  to  be  only  twelve ;  and  an 
edict  issued,  that  it  should  not  give  itself  airs  yet  these 
four  years  ;  and  how  it  got  leave  to  be  called  Miss,  by 
grace  :  these,  and  such  like  hows,  were  in  my  head  to 
tell  you,  but  who  can  write  ?  Also  how  Manning  is 
come  to  town  in  spectacles,  and  studies  physic ;  is  mel- 

*  The  daughter  of  a  friend,  whom  Lamb   exceedingly  liked  from   a 
child,  and  always  called  by  this  epithet. 


206  LETTERS   TO   HAZLITT. 

anclioly,  and  seems  to  have  something  in  his  head, 
which  he  don't  impart.  Then,  how  I  am  going  to 
leave  off  smoking.  O  la !  your  Leonardos  of  Oxford 
made  my  mouth  water.  I  was  hiu'ried  through  the 
gallery,  and  they  escaped  me.  What  do  I  say  ?  I 
was  a  Goth  then,  and  should  not  have  noticed  them. 
I  had  not  settled  my  notions  of  beauty ;  —  I  have 
now  for  ever  !  —  the  small  head,  the  long  eye,  —  that 
sort  of  peering  curve,  —  the  wicked  Italian  mischief; 
the  stick-at-nothmg,  Herodias'  daughter-kmd  of  grace. 
You  understand  me  ?  But  you  disappoint  me,  in  pass- 
ing over  in  absolute  silence  the  Blenheim  Leonardo. 
Didn't  you  see  it  ?  Excuse  a  lover's  curiosity.  I 
have  seen  no  pictures  of  note  since,  except  Mr. 
Dawe's  gallery.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  differently 
two  great  men  treat  the  same  subject,  yet  both  excel- 
lent in  their  way.  For  instance,  Milton  and  Mr. 
Dawe.  Mr.  D.  has  chosen  to  illustrate  the  story  of 
Samson  exactly  in  the  point  of  view  in  which  Milton 
has  been  most  happy :  the  interview  between  the  Jew- 
ish hero,  blind  and  captive,  and  Delilah.  Milton  has 
imagined  his  locks  grown  again,  strong  as  horsehair 
or  porcupine's  bristles ;  doubtless  shaggy  and  black, 
as  being  hairs  '  which,  of  a  nation  armed,  contained 
the  strength.'  I  don't  remember  he  says  black;  but 
could  Milton  imagine  them  to  be  yellow?  Do  you? 
Mr.  Dawe,  with  striking  originality  of  conception,  has 
crowned  him  with  a  thin  yellow  wig,  in  color  precise- 
ly like  Dyson's  ;  in  curl  and  quantity,  resembhng  Mrs. 

P 's  ;  his  limbs  rather  stout,  —  about  such  a  man 

as  my  brother  or  Rickman,  —  but  no  Atlas  nor  Her- 
cules, not  yet  so  long  as  Dubois,  the  clown  of  Sadler's 
Wells.     This  was  judicious,  taking  the  spirit  of  the 


LETTERS   TO   HAZLITT.  207 

story  rather  than  the  fact;  for  doubtless  God  could 
communicate  national  salvation  to  the  trust  of  flax  and 
tow  as  well  as  hemp  and  cordage,  and  could  draw 
down  a  temple  with  a  golden  tress  as  soon  as  with  all 
the  cables  of  the  British  navy. 

"  Wasn't  you  sorry  for  Lord  Nelson  ?  I  have  fol- 
lowed him  in  fancy  ever  since  I  saw  him  walking  in 
Pall  Mall,  (I  was  prejudiced  against  him  before,)  look- 
ing just  as  a  hero  should  look  ;  and  I  have  been  very 
much  cut  about  it  indeed.  He  was  the  only  pretence 
of  a  great  man  we  had.  Nobody  is  left  of  any  name 
at  all.  His  secretary  died  by  his  side.  I  imagined 
him,  a  Mr.  Scott,  to  be  the  man  you  met  at  Hume's ; 
but  I  learnt  from  Mrs.  Hume  that  it  is  not  the  same. 
I  met  Mrs.  H.  one  day  and  agreed  to  go  on  the  Sun- 
day to  tea,  but  the  rain  prevented  us,  and  the  distance. 
I  have  been  to  apologize,  and  we  are  to  dine  there  the 
first  fine  Sunday !  Strange  perverseness.  I  never 
went  while  you  stayed  here,  and  now  I  go  to  find  you. 
What  other  news  is  there,  Mary?  What  puns  have 
I  made  in  the  last  fortnight?  You  never  remember 
them.  You  have  no  relish  of  the  comic.  '  Oh !  tell 
Hazlitt  not  to  forget  to  send  the  American  Farmer. 
I  dare  say  it  is  not  so  good  as  he  fancies  ;  but  a  book's 
a  book.'  1  have  not  heard  from  Words w(#th  or  from 
Malta  since.  Charles  Kemble,  it  seems,  enters  into 
possession  to-morrow.  We  sup  at  109,  Russell  Street, 
this  evening.  I  wish  your  friend  would  not  drink. 
It's  a  blemish  in  the  greatest  characters.  You  send 
me  a  modern  quotation  poetical.  How  do  you  like 
this  in  an  old  play?  Vittoria  Corombona,  a  spunky 
Italian  lady,  a  Leonardo  one,  nicknamed  the  White 
Devil,  being  on  her  trial  for  murder,  &c.  —  and  ques- 


208  LETTERS  TO   HAZLITT. 

tloned   about  seducino-  a  duke  from  his  wife  and  the 
state,  makes  answer :  — 

'  Condemn  you  me  for  that  the  Duke  did  love  me? 
So  maj'  you  blame  some  fair  and  crystal  river, 
For  that  some  melancholic  distracted  man 
Hath  drown'd  himself  in  it.' 

"  N.  B.  I  shall  expect  a  line  from  you,  if  but  a 
bare  line,  whenever  you  write  to  Russell  Street,  and 
a  letter  often  when  you  do  not.  I  pay  no  postage. 
But  I  will  have  consideration  for  you  until  Parliament 
time  and  franks.  Luck  to  Ned  Search  and  the  new 
art  of  coloring.  Monkey  sends  her  love;  and  Mary 
especially. 

"  Yours  truly,  C.  Lamb. 


?> 


Lamb  introduced  Hazlitt  to  Godwin  ;  and  we  find 
him  early  in  the  following  year  thus  writing  respect- 
ing the  offer  of  Hazhtt's  work  to  Johnson,  and  his 
literary  pursuits. 

TO  MR.  HAZLITT. 

"  Jan.  15th,  1806. 

"  Dear  Hazlitt,  —  Godwin  went  to  Johnson's  yes- 
terday about  your  business.  Johnson  would  not  come 
down,  or  ^ve  any  answer,  but  has  promised  to  open 
the  manuscript,  and  to  give  you  an  answer  in  one 
month.  Godwin  will  punctually  go  again  (Wednes- 
day is  Johnson's  open  day)  yesterday  four  weeks  next : 
i.  e.  in  one  lunar  month  from  this  time.  Till  when, 
Johnson  positively  declines  giving  any  answer.  I 
wish  you  joy  on  ending  your  Search.  Mrs.  H.  was 
naming  something  about  a  '  Life  of  Fawcett,'  to  be  by 
you  undertaken :  the  great  Fawcett,  as  she  explained 


LETTEKS   TO    HAZLITT.  209 

to  Manning,  when  he  asked,  '  What  Fawcett  ?  '  He 
innocently  thought  Fawcett  the  Player.  But  Fawcett 
the  divine  is  known  to  many  people,  albeit  unknown  to 
the  Chinese  inquirer.  I  should  think,  if  you  liked  it, 
and  Johnson  declined  it,  that  Phillips  is  the  man.  He 
is  perpetually  bringing  out  biographies,  Richardson, 
Wilks,  Foot,  Lee  Lewis,  without  number:  little  trim 
things  in  two  easy  volumes,  price  12s.  the  two,  made 
up  of  letters  to  and  from,  scraps,  posthumous  trifles, 
anecdotes,  and  about  forty  pages  of  hard  biography ; 
you  might  dish  up  a  Fawcettiad  in  three  months  and 
ask  60Z.  or  80?.  for  it.  I  dare  say  that  Phillips  would 
catch  at  it.  I  wrote  you  the  other  day  in  a  great 
hurry.  Did  you  get  it  ?  This  is  merely  a  letter  of 
business  at  Godwin's  request.  Lord  Nelson  is  quiet  at 
last.  His  ghost  only  keeps  a  slight  fluttering  in  odes 
and  elegies  in  newspapers,  and  impromptus,  which 
could  not  be  got  ready  before  the  ftmeral. 

"  As  for  news, is  coming  to  town  on  Monday 

(if  no  kind  angel  intervene)  to  surrender  himself  to 
prison.  He  hopes  to  get  the  rules  of  the  Fleet.  On 
the  same,  or  nearly  the  same  day,  F — ,  my  other 
quondam  co-friend  and  drinker,  will  go  to  Newgate, 
and  his  wife  and  four  children,  I  suppose,  to  the  par- 
ish. Plenty  of  reflection  and  motives  of  g|^titude  to 
the  wise  Disposer  of  all  things  in  ms,  whose  prudent 
conduct  has  hitherto  ensured  us  a  warm  fire  and  snug 
roof  over  our  heads.  Nullum  numen  abest  si  sit  Pru- 
dentia.     Alas !  Prudentia  is  in  the  last  quarter  of  her 

tutelary  shming  over  me.     A  httle  time  and  I ; 

but  maybe  I  may,  at  last,  hit  upon  some  mode  of  col- 
lecting some  of  the  vast  superfluities  of  this  money- 
voiding  town.     Much  is  to  be  got,  and  I  do  not  want 

VOL.  I.  14 


210  LETTERS  TO  HAZLITT. 

much.  All  I  ask  is  time  and  leisure ;  and  I  am  cruelly 
oft'  for  tliem.  When  you  have  the  inclination,  I  shall 
be  very  glad  to  have  a  letter  from  you.  Your  brother 
and  Mrs.  H.,  I  am  afraid,  think  hardly  of  us  for  not 
coming  oftener  to  see  them,  but  we  are  distracted  be- 
yond what  they  can  conceive  with  visitors  and  visit- 
ings.  I  never  have  an  hour  for  my  head  to  work 
quietly  its  own  workings ;  which  you  know  is  as  nec- 
essaiy  to  the  human  system  as  sleep.  Sleep,  too,  I 
can't  get  for  these  winds  of  a  night :  and  without  sleep 
and  rest  what  should  ensue  ?  Lunacy.  But  I  trust  it 
won't.  Yours,  dear  H.,  C.  Lamb." 


TO  MR.  HAZLITT. 

"  Feb.  19th,  1806. 
"Dear  H.  —  Godwin  has  just  been  here  in  his  way 
from  Johnson's.  Johnson  has  had  a  fire  in  his  house  ; 
this  happened  about  five  weeks  ago  ;  it  was  in  the  day- 
time, so  it  did  not  burn  the  house  down,  but  it  did  so 
much  damage  that  the  house  must  come  down,  to  be 
repaired.  His  nephew  that  we  met  on  Hampstead 
Hill  put  it  out.  Well,  this  fire  has  put  him  so  back, 
that  he  craves  one  more  month  before  he  gives  you  an 
answer.  |f  will  certainly  goad  Godwin  (if  necessary) 
to  go  again  this  very  day  four  weeks  ;  but  I  am  confi- 
dent he  will  want  no  goading.  Three  or  four  most 
capital  auctions  of  pictures  advertised  in  May,  Well- 
bore  Ellis  Agar^s,  the  first  private  collection  in  Eng- 
land, so  Holcroft  says.  In  March,  Sir  George  Young's 
in  Stratford  Place  (where  Cosway  lives),  and  a  Mr. 
Hulse's  at  Blackheath,  both  very  capital  collections, 
and  have  been  announced  for  some  months.     Also  the 


LETTERS   TO   HAZLITT.  211 

Marqiiis  of  Lansdowne's  pictures  in  March ;  and  though 
inferior  to  mention,  lastly,  the  Tructhsessian  Gallery. 
Don't  your  mouth  water  to  be  here  ?     T'other  night 
Loftus  called,  whom  we  have  not  seen  since  you  went 
before.     We  meditate  a  stroll  next  Wednesday,  fast- 
day.     He  happened  to  light  upon  Mr.  Holcroft,  wife 
and    daughter,  their  first  visit   at   our  house.      Your 
brother  called  last  night.     We  keep  up  our  mtimacy 
He  is  going  to  begin  a  large  Madonna  and  child  from 
Mrs.  H.  and  baby.     I  fear  he  goes  astray  after  ignes 
fatui.     He  is  a  clever  man.     By-the-by  I  saw  a  min- 
iature of  his  as  far  excelling  any  in  his  show  cupboard 
(that  of  yoiu*  sister  not  excepted)  as  that  show  cup- 
board excels  the  show  things  you  see  in  windows  —  an 
old  woman  —  hang  her  name  —  but  most  superlative  ; 
he  has  it  to  clean  —  I'll  ask  him  the  name  —  but  the 
best  miniature  I  ever  saw.      But  for  oil  pictures !  — 
what  has  he  to  do  with  Madonnas  ?  —  if  the  Virgin 
Mary  were  alive  and  visitable,  he  would  not  hazard 
himself  in  a  Covent-Garden-pit-door-crowd  to  see  her. 
It  a'n't  his  style  of  beauty,  is  it  ?     But  he  will  go  on 
painting  tbings  he  ought  not  to  paint,  and  not  paint- 
ing things  he  ought  to  paint.     Manning  not  gone  to 
China,   but  talks  of  going  this  spring.     God  forbid. 
Coleridge   not   heard   of.     I   am   going   to  •^eave   off 
smoke.     In  the  meantime   I  am  so  smoky  with  last 
night's  ten  pipes,  that  I  must  leave  off.     Mary  begs 
her  kind  remembrances.    Pray  write  to  us.    This  is  no 
letter,  but  I  supposed  you  grew  anxious  about  Johnson. 

"  N.  B.  *Have  taken  a  room  at  three  shillings  a 
week,  to  be  in  between  five  and  eight  at  night,  to 
avoid  my  Twctumal  alias   knack-eternal  visitors.     The 


212  LETTERS  TO   HAZLITT. 

first-fruits  of  my  retirement  has  been  a  farce  which 
goes  to  manager  to-morrow.  Wish  my  ticket  luck. 
God  bless  jou,  and  do  write.  —  Yours  fumosissimus^ 

"  C.  Lamb." 

The  farce  referred  to  in  the  foregoing  letter  is  the 
delightful  jew-otesprit,  "  Mr.  H.,"  destined  to  only  one 
night's  stage  existence,  but  to  become  "  good  jest  for- 
ever." It  must  be  confessed  that  it  has  not  substance 
enough  for  a  dramatic  piece  in  two  acts  —  a  piece 
which  must  present  a  show  of  real  interest  —  involve 
its  pair  of  young  lovers  in  actual  perplexities  —  and 
terminate  in  the  seriousness  of  marriage  !  It  would 
be  rare  sport  in  Milton's  "  Limbo  of  Vanity,"  but  is 
too  airy  for  the  ponderous  sentimentalism  of  the  mod- 
ern school  of  farce.  As  Swift,  in  "Gulliver,"  brings 
everything  to  the  standard  of  size,  so  in  this  farce 
everything  is  reduced  to  an  alphabetical  standard. 
Humor  is  sent  to  school  to  learn  its  letters ;  or,  rath- 
er, letters  are  made  instinct  with  the  most  delicate  hu- 
mor. It  is  the  apotheosis  of  the  alphabet,  and  teaches 
the  value  of  a  good  name  without  the  least  hint  of 
moral  purpose.  This  mere  pleasantry  —  this  refining 
on  sounds  and  letters  —  this  verbal  banter,  and  watery 
collision  (5f  the  pale  reflections  of  words,  could  not  suc- 
ceed on  a  stage  which  had  begun  to  require  mterest, 
moral  or  immoral,  to  be  interwoven  with  the  web  of 
all  its  actions  ;  which  no  longer  rejoiced  in  the  riot  of 
animal  spirits  and  careless  gaiety;  which  no  longer 
permitted  wit  to  take  the  sting  from  evil,  as  well  as 
the  load  from  care ;  but  infected  even  its  prince  of 
rakes,  Charles  Surface,  with  a  cant  of  sentiment  which 
makes  us  turn  for  relief  to  the  more  honest  hypocrite 


LETTER  TO   WORDSWORTH.  213 

his  brother.  "Mr.  H."  "could  never  c?o/"  but  its 
composition  was  pleasant,  and  its  acceptance  gave 
Lamb  some  of  the  happiest  moments  he  ever  spent. 
Thus  he  announces  it  to  Wordsworth,  in  reply  to  a 
letter  communicating  to  him  that  the  poet  was  a 
father. 

TO  MR.  WORDSWORTH. 

*'  Dear  Wordsworth,  —  We  are   pleased,  you  may 

be  sm:e,  with  the  good  news  of  Mrs.  W .     Hope 

all  is  well  over  by  this  time.  '  A  fine  boy !  —  have 
you  any  more  ?  —  one  more  and  a  girl  —  poor  copies 
of  me ! '  vide  "  Mr.  H."  a  farce  which  the  proprietors 
have  done  me  the  honor ;  but  I  will  set  down  Mr. 
Wroughton's  own  words.  N.  B.  The  ensuing  letter 
wa.s  sent  in  answer  to  one  which  I  w^rote,  begging  to 
know  if  my  peice  had  any  chance,  as  I  might  make 
alterations,  &c.  1,  writing  on  Monday,  there  comes 
this  letter  on  the  Wednesday.     Attend ! 

[Copy  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  R.  Wroughton.] 

'  Sir,  —  Your  piece  of  "  Mr.  H."  I  am  desired  to 
say,  is  accepted  at  Drury-Lane  Theatre,  by  the  propri- 
etors, and,  if  agreeable  to  you,  will  be  brought  forwards 
"when  the  proper  opportimity  serves.  The  piece  shall 
be  sent  to  you,  for  your  alterations,  in  the  course  of  a 
few  days,  as  the  ^me  is  not  in  my  hands,  but  with 
the  proprietors. 

'  I  am,  sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

'  Richard  Wroughton.' 

[Dated] 
•  66,  Gower  Street, 

'  Wednesday,  June  11, 1806.' 


214 


LETTER  TO   WORDSWORTH. 


"  On  the  following  Sunday  Mr.  Tobin  comes.  Tlie 
scent  of  a  manager's  letter  brought  him.  He  would 
have  gone  further  any  day  on  such  a  business.  I  read 
the  letter  to  him.  He  deems  it  authentic  and  peremp- 
tory. Our  conversation  naturally  fell  upon  pieces, 
different  sorts  of  pieces ;  what  is  the  best  way  of  of- 
fering a  piece,  how  far  the  caprice  of  managers  is  an 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  piece,  how  to  judge  of  the 
merits  of  a  piece,  how  long  a  piece  may  remain  in  the 
hands  of  the  managers  before  it  is  acted ;  and  my 
piece,  and  your  piece,  and  my  poor  brother's  piece  — 
my  poor  brother  was  all  his  life  endeavoring  to  get  a 
piece  accepted. 

"  '  Mr.  H.'  I  wrote  in  mere  wantonness  of  triumph. 
Have  nothing  more  to  say  about  it.  The  managers,  I 
thank  my  stars,  have  decided  its  merits  for  ever. 
They  are  the  best  judges  of  pieces,  and  it  would  be 
insensible  in  me  to  affect  a  false  modesty  after  the  very 
flattering  letter  which  I  have  received. 


ADMIT 

TO 

BOXES 

Mk.  H. 


Ninth  Night. 


Charles  Lamb. 


"  I  think  this  will  be  as  good  a  pattern  for  orders 
as  I  can  think  on.  A  little  thin  flowery  border,  round, 
neat,  not  gaudy,  and  the  Drury-Lane  Apollo,  with 
the  harp  at  the  top.  Or  shall  I  have  no  Apollo  ?  — 
simply  nothing  ?     Or  perhaps  the  comic  muse  ? 

"  The  same  form,  only  I  think  without  the  Apollo, 


LETTER  TO   WORDSWORTH.  2ir> 

will  serve  for  the  pit  and  galleries.  I  think  it  will  be 
bes{  to  write  my  name  at  full  length ;  but  then  if  I 
give  away  a  great  many,  that  will  be  tedious.  Per- 
haps Ch.  Lamb  will  do. 

"  BOXES,  now  I  think  on  it,  I'll  have  in  capitals. 
The  rest,  in  a  neat  Italian  hand.  Or  better,  per- 
haps 33oj:e3,  in  old  English  characters,  like  Madoc  or 
Thai  aba  ? 

•  ''''Apropos  of  Spencer  (you  will  find  him  mentioned 
a  page  or  two  before,  near  enough  for  an  apropos^, 
I  was  discoursing  on  poetry  (as  one's  apt  to  deceive 
one's  self,  and  when  a  person  is  willing  to  talk  of 
what  one  likes,  to  beheve  that  he  also  likes  the  same, 
as  lovers  do)  with  a  young  gentleman  of  my  office, 
who  is  deep  read  in  Anacreon  Moore,  Lord  Strang- 
ford,  and  the  principal  modern  poets,  and  I  happened 
to  mention  Epithalamiums,  and  that  I  could  show 
him  a  very  fine  one  of  Spenser's.  At  the  mention 
of  this,  my  gentleman,  who  is  a  very  fine  gentleman, 
pricked  up  his  ears  and  expressed  great  pleasure,  and 
begged  that  I  would  give  him  leave  to  copy  it :  he 
did  not  care  how  long  it  was  (for  I  objected  the 
length),  he  should  be  very  happy  to  see  anything  by 
Mm.  Then  pausing,  and  looking  sad,  he  ejaculated 
'  Poor  Spencer  ! '  I  begged  to  know  the  reason  of 
his  ejaculation,  thinking  that  time  had  by  this  time 
softened  down  any  calamities  which  the  bard  might 
have  endured.  '  Why,  poor  fellow  ! '  said  he,  '  he  has 
lost  his  wife  ! '  '  Lost  his  wife  ! '  said  I,  '  who  are 
you  talking  of  ?  '  '  Why,  Spencer  !  '  said  he  ;  '  I've 
read  the  "  Monody  "  he  wrote  on  the  occasion,  and  a 
very  pretty  thing  it  is.''  This  led  to  an  explanation 
(it  could  be  delayed  no  longer),  that  the  sound  Spen- 


216  LETTERS   TO   RICKMAN. 

ser,  which,  when  poetry  is  talked  of,  generally  ex- 
cites an  image  of  an  old  bard  in  a  ruff,  and  so*me- 
times  with  it  dim  notions  of  Sir.  P.  Sydney,  and 
perhaps  Lord  Burleigh,  had  raised  in  my  gentleman 
a  quite  contrary  image  of  the  Honorable  William 
Spencer,  who  has  translated  some  things  from  the 
German  very  prettily,  which  are  published  with  Lady 
Di.  Beauclerk's  designs.  Nothing  like  defining  of 
terais  when  we  talk.  What  blunders  might  I  have 
fallen  into  of  quite  inapplicable  criticism,  but  for  this 
timely  explanation. 

"N.  B.  At  the  beginning  of  Edm.  Spenser  (to 
prevent  mistakes),  I  have  copied  from  my  own  copy, 
and  primarily  from  a  book  of  Chalmers'  on  Shak- 
speare,  a  sonnet  of  Spenser's  never  printed  among 
his  poems.  It  is  curious,  as  being  manly,  and  rather 
Miltonic,  and  as  a  sonnet  of  Spenser's  with  nothing  in 
it  about  love  or  knighthood.  I  have  no  room  for  re- 
membrances ;  but  I  hope  our  doing  your  commission 
will  prove  we  do  not  quite  forget  you. 

C.  L." 

The  interval  between  the  completion  of  the  farce, 
"  and  its  first  acting,"  though  full  of  bright  hopes  of 
dramatic  success,  was  not  all  a  phantom.  The  follow- 
ing two  letters  to  Mr.  Rickman,  now  one  of  the  Clerks 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  show  Lamb's  unwearied 
kindness. 

TO   MR.   RICKMAN. 

"  Dear  Rickman,  —  You  do  not  happen  to  have 
any  place  at  your  disposal  which  would  suit  a  decayed 
Literatus  ?     I  do  not  much  expect  that  you  have,  or 


LETTERS   TO   RICKMAN.  217 

that  you  will  go  much  out  of  the  way  to  serve  the  ob- 
ject, when  you  hear  it  is  F.  But  the  case  is,  by  a 
mistaking  of  his  turn,  as  they  call  it,  he  is  reduced,  I 
am  afraid,  to  extremities,  and  would  be  extremely  glad 
of  a  place  in  an  office.  Now  it  does  sometimes  hap- 
pen, that  just  as  a  man  wants  a  place,  a  place  wants 
him ;  and  though  this  is  a  lottery  to  which  none  but 
G.  B.  would  choose  to  trust  his  all,  there  is  no  harm 
just  to  call  m  at  Despair's  office  for  a  fi-iend,  and  see 
if  Jiis  niunber  is  come  up  (B.'s  further  case  I  enclose 
by  way  of  episode).  Now  if  you  should  happen,  or 
anybody  you  know,  to  want  a  hand,  here  is  a  young 
man  of  sohd  but  not  brilliant  genius,  who  would  turn 
his  hand  to  the  making  out  dockets,  penning  a  mani- 
festo, or  scoring  a  tally,  not  the  worse  (I  hope)  for 
knowing  Latin  and  Greek,  and  having  in  youth  con- 
versed with  the  philosophers.  But  from  these  folhes  I 
believe  he  is  thoroughly  awakened,  and  would  bind 
liimself  by  a  terrible  oath  never  to  imagine  himself  an 
extraordinary  genius  again. 

"  Yours,  &c.  C.  Lamb." 


TO  MR.  RICKMAN. 

"  March,  1806. 
"  Dear  Rickman,  —  I  send  you  some  papers  about 
a  salt-water  soap,  for  which  the  inventor  is  desirous 
of  getting  a  parliamentary  reward,  like  Dr.  Jenner. 
Whether  such  a  project  be  feasible,  I  mainly  doubt, 
taking  for  granted  the  equal  utility.  I  should  suppose 
the  usual  way  of  paying  such  projectors  is  by  patents 
and  contracts.  The  patent,  you  see,  he  has  got.  A 
contract  he  is  about  with  the  navy  board.     Meantime, 


218  LETTERS  TO  RICKMAN. 

the  projector  Is  hungry.  Will  you  answer  me  two 
questions,  and  return  them  with  the  papers  as  soon 
as  you  can?  Imprimis,  is  there  any  chance  of  suc- 
cess in  application  to  Parliament  for  a  reward  ?  Did 
you  ever  hear  of  the  invention  ?  You  see  its  benefits 
and  saving  to  the  nation  (always  the  first  motive  with 
a  true  projector)  are  feelingly  set  forth :  the  last  par- 
agraph but  one  of  the  estimate,  in  enumerating  the 
shifts  poor  seamen  are  put  to,  even  approaches  to 
the  pathetic.  But,  agreeing  to  all  he  says,  is  there 
the  remotest  chance  of  Parliament  giving  the  projec- 
tor anything;  and  when  should  application  be  made, 
now  or  after  a  report  (if  he  can  get  it)  from  the  navy 
board  ?  Secondly,  let  the  infeasibility  be  as  great  as 
you  will,  you  will  oblige  me  by  telling  me  the  way  of 
introducing  such  an  application  in  Parliament,  without 
buying  over  a  majority  of  members,  which  is  totally 
out  of  projector's  power.  I  vouch  nothing  for  the 
soap  myself;  for  I  always  wash  in  fresh  water ^  and 
find  it  answer  tolerably  well  for  all  purposes  of  clean- 
Imess ;  nor  do  I  know  the  projector ;  but  a  relation  of 
mine  has  put  me  on  writing  to  you,  for  whose  parlia- 
mentary knowledge  he  has  great  veneration. 

"P.  S.  The  Capt.  and  Mrs.  Burney  and  Phillips 
take  their  chance  at  cribbage  here  on  Wednesday. 
Will  you  and  Mrs.  R.  join  the  party  ?  Mary  desires 
her  compHments  to  Mrs.  R.,  and  joins  in  the  invita- 
tion. 

"  Yours  truly,  C.  Lamb." 

Before  the  production  of  "  Mr.  H.,"  Lamb  was 
obliged,  in  sad  earnest,  to  part  from  Manning,  who, 
after  talking  and  thinking  about  China  for  years,  took 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  219 

the  heroic  resolution  of  going  thither,  not  to  acquire 
wealth  or  fame,  but  to  realize  the  phantom  of  liis  rest- 
less thought.  Happy  was  he  to  have  a  friend,  like 
Mr.  Burney,  to  indulge  and  to  soften  his  grief,  which 
he  thus  expresses  in  his  first  letter  to  his  friend. 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  May  10th,  1806. 

*'  My  Dear  Manning,  —  I  didn't  know  what  your 
going  was  till  I  shook  a  last  fist  with  you,  and  then 
'twas  just  like  having  shaken  hands  with  a  wretch  on 
the  fatal  scaffold,  and,  when  you  are  down  the  ladder, 
you  can  never  stretch  out  to  him  again.  Mary  says 
you  are  dead,  and  there's  nothing  to  do  but  to  leave 
it  to  time  to  do  for  us  in  the  end  what  it  always  does 
for  those  who  moum  for  people  in  such  a  case.  But 
she'll  see  by  your  letter  you  are  not  quite  dead.  A 
little  kicking  and  agony,  and  then .  Martin  Bur- 
ney tooh  me  out  a  walking  that  evening,  and  we 
talked  of  Manning ;  and  then  I  came  home  and 
smoked  for  you,  and  at  twelve  o'clock  came  home 
Mary  and  Monkey  Louisa  from  the  play,  and  there 
was  more  talk  and  more  smoking,  and  they  all  seemed 
first-rate  characters,  because  they  knew  a  certain  per- 
son. But  what's  the  use  of  talking  about  'em  ?  By 
the  time  you'll  have  made  your  escape  from  the  Kal- 
muks,  you'll  have  stayed  so  long  I  shall  never  be 
able  to  bring  to  your  mind  who  Mary  was,  who  will 
have  died  about  a  year  before,  nor  who  the  Holcrofts 
were  !  me  perhaps  you  will  mistake  for  Phillips,  or 
confound  me  with  Mr.  Dawe,  because  you  saw  us 
together.     Mary  (whom  you  seem  to  remember  yet) 


220  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

is  not  quite  easy  that  she  had  not  a  formal  parting 
from  you.  I  wish  it  had  so  happened.  But  you  must 
bring  her  a  token,  a  shawl  or  something,  and  remem- 
ber a  sprightly  little  mandarin  for  our  mantel-piece, 
as  a  companion  to  the  child  I  am  going  to  purchase 
at  the  museum.  She  says  you  saw  her  writings  about 
the  other  day,  and  she  wishes  you  should  know  what 
they  are.  She  is  doing  for  Godwin's  bookseller  twenty 
of  Shakspeare's  plays,  to  be  made  uato  cliildren's  tales, 
Six  are  already  done  by  her,  to  wit,  '  The  Tempest,' 
'  Winter's  Tale,'  '  Midsummer  Night,'  '  Much  Ado,' 
'  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  and  '  CymbeHne  ; '  and 
'  The  Merchant  of  Venice  '  is  in  forwardness,  I  have 
done  '  Othello '  and  '  Macbeth '  and  mean  to  do  all  the 
tragedies.  I  think  it  will  be  popular  among  the  little 
people,  besides  money.  It's  to  bring  in  sixty  guineas. 
Mary  has  done  them  capitally,  I  think,  you'd  think. 
These  are  the  humble  amusements  we  propose,  while 
you  are  gone  to  plant  the  cross  of  Christ  among  bar- 
barous pagan  anthropophagi.  Quam  homo  homini 
praestat !  but  then,  perhaps,  you'll  get  murdered,  and 
we  shall  die  in  our  beds  with  a  fair  literary  reputation. 
Be  sure,  if  you  see  any  of  those  people,  whose  heads 
do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders,  that  you  make  a 
draught  of  them.  It  will  be  very  curious.  Oh  I 
Manning,  I  am  serious  to  sinking  almost,  when  I 
think  that  aU  those  evenings,  which  you  have  made 
so  pleasant,  are  gone  perhaps  forever.  Four  years, 
you  talk  of,  may  be  ten,  and  you  may  come  back 
and  find  such  alterations  !  Some  circumstances  may 
grow  up  to  you  or  to  me,  that  may  be  a  bar  to  the 
return  of  any  such  intimacy.  I  dare  say  all  this  is 
hum  !  and  that  all  will  come  back  ;  but,  indeed,  we 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  221 

die  many  deaths  before  we  die,  and  I  am  almost 
sick  when  I  think  that  such  a  hold  as  I  had  of  you 
is  gone.  I  have  friends,  but  some  of  'em  are  changed. 
Marriage,  or  some  circumstance,  rises  up  to  make 
them  not  the  same.  But  I  felt  sure  of  you.  And 
that  last  token  you  gave  me  of  expressing  a  wish  to 
have  my  name  joined  with  yours,  you  know  not  how 
it  affected  me  :  like  a  legacy. 

"  God  bless  you  in  every  way  you  can  form  a  wish. 
May  He  give  you  health,  and  safety,  and  the  accom- 
plishment of  all  your  objects,  and  return  you  again 
to  us,  to  gladden  some  fireside  or  other  (I  suppose 
we  shall  be  moved  from  the  Temple).  I  wLU  niu-se 
the  remembrance  of  your  steadiness  and  quiet,  which 
used  to  infuse  something  hke  itself  into  our  nervous 
minds.  Mary  called  you  our  ventilator.  Farewell, 
and  take  her  best  wishes  and  mine. 

"  Good  bye,  C.  L." 

Christmas  approached,  and  Lamb  then  conveyed 
to  Manning,  now  at  the  antij^odes,  news  of  poor 
Holcroft's  failure  in  his  play  of  "  The  Vindictive 
Man,"  and  his  own  approaching  trial. 


TO  MR.   MANNING. 

"  December  5th,  1806. 
"  Manning,  your  letter  dated  Hottentots,  August 
the  what-was-it  ?  came  to  hand.  I  can  scarce  hope 
that  mine  will  have  the  same  luck.  China  —  Canton 
—  bless  us  —  how  it  strains  the  imagination  and  makes 
it  ache  I  I  write  under  another  uncertainty,  whether 
it    can    go    to-morrow  by  a    ship  which    I    have  just 


222  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

learned  is  going  off  direct  to  your  part  of  the  world, 
or  whether  the  despatches  may  not  be  sealed  up  and 
this  have  to  wait,  for  if  it  is  detained  here,  it  will 
grow  staler  in  a  fortnight  than  in  a  five  months'  voy- 
age coming  to  you.  It  will  be  a  point  of  conscience 
to  send  you  none  but  bran-new  news  (the  latest  edi- 
tion), which  will  but  grow  the  better,  like  oranges, 
for  a  sea  voyage.  Oh  that  you  should  be  so  many 
hemispheres  off — if  I  speak  incorrectly  you  can  cor- 
rect me  —  why  the  simplest  death  or  marriage  that 
takes  place  here  must  be  important  to  you  as  news 
in  the  old  Bastile.  There's  your  friend  Tuthill  has 
got  away  from  France  —  you  remember  France  ?  and 
Tuthill  ?  —  ten-to-one  but  he  writes  by  this  post,  if  he 
don't  get  my  note  in  time,  apprising  him  of  the  vessel 
sailing;.  Know  then  that  he  has  found  means  to  obtain 
leave  from  Bonaparte,  without  making  use  of  any 
incredible  romantic  pretences  as  some  have  done,  who 
never  meant  to  ftilfil  them,  to  come  home,  and  I  have 
seen  him  here  and  at  Holcroft's.  An't  you  glad 
about  Tuthill?  Now  then  be  sorry  for  Holcroft, 
whose  new  play,  called  '  The  Vindictive  Man,'  was 
damned  about  a  fortnight  since.  It  died  in  part  of  its 
own  weakness,  and  in  part  for  being  choked  up  with 
bad  actors.  The  two  principal  parts  were  destined  to 
Mrs.  Jordan  and  Mr.  Bannister,  but  Mrs.  J.  has  not 
come  to  terms  with  the  managers,  they  have  had  some 
squabble,  and  Bannister  shot  some  of  his  fingers  off  by 
the  going  off  of  a  gun.  So  Miss  Duncan  had  her 
part,  and  Mr.  De  Camp  took  his.  His  part,  the  princi- 
pal comic  hope  of  the  play,  was  most  unluckily  Gold- 
finch, taken  out  of  the  '  Road  to  Ruin,'  not  only  the 
same  character,  but  the  identical  Goldfinch  —  the  same 


LETTERS  TO   MANNING.  223 

as    FalstafF  is  in    two   plays  of  Shakspeare.     As    the 
devil  of  ill-luck  would  have  it,  half  the  audience  did 
not  know  that  H.  had  written  it,  but  were  displeased 
at  his  stealing  from   the  '  Road  to  Ruin  ;'  and   those 
who  might  have  borne    a  gentlemanly  coxcomb  with 
his  '  That's  your  sort,'  '  Go  it'  —  such  as  Lewis  is  — 
did  not  relish  the  intolerable  vulgarity  and  inanity  of 
the  idea  stript  of  his  manner.     De  Camp  was  hooted, 
more  than  hist,  hooted  and  bellowed  off  the  stage  be- 
fore  the  second  act  was  finished,  so  that  the  remainder 
of  his  part  was  forced  to  be,  with  some  violence  to  the 
play,  omitted.     In    addition   to  this,  a  woman  of  the 
town  was  another  principal  character  —  a  most  unfor- 
tunate choice  in  this  moral  day.     The  audience  were 
as  scandalized  as  if  you  were  to  introduce  such  a  per- 
sonage to  their  private  tea-tables.     Besides,  her  action 
in  the  play  was    gross  —  wheedling   an  old  man  into 
marriage.     But  the  mortal  blunder  of  the  play  was 
that  which,  oddly  enough,  H.  took  pride  in,  and  exult- 
ingly  told   me  of  the  night  before  it  came    out,  that 
there  were  no  less  than  eleven  principal  characters  in 
it,  and  I  believe  he  meant  of  the  men  only,  for  the 
playbill  exprest  as  much,  not  reckoning  one  woman  — 
and  true  it  was,  for  Mr.  Powell,  Mr.  Raymond,  Mr. 
Bartlett,  Mr.  H.  Siddons,  Mr.  Barrymore,  &c.  &c.,  — 
to  the  number  of  eleven,  had  all  parts  equally  promi- 
nent,  and  there  was  as   much  of  them   in   quantity 
and  rank  as  of  the  hero  and  heroine  —  and  most  of 
them  gentlemen  who  seldom  appear  but  as  the  hero's 
friend  in  a  farce  —  for  a  minute  or  two  —  and  here 
they  all   had  their  ten-minute  speeches,  and   one  of 
them   gave  the  audience  a    serious   account   how   he 
was  now  a  lawyer  but  had  been  a  poet,  and  then  a 


224  LETTEKS  TO   MANNING. 

long  enumeration  of  tlie  inconveniences  of  authorship, 
rascally  booksellers,  reviewers,  &c.  ;  which  first  set 
the  audience  a  gaping  ;  but  I  have  said  enough.  You 
will  be  so  sorry,  that  you  will  not  think  the  best  of 
me  for  my  detail ;  but  news  is  news  at  Canton.  Poor 
H.  I  fear  will  feel  the  disappointment  very  seriously 
in  a  pecuniary  light.  From  what  I  can  learn  he  has 
saved  nothing.  You  and  I  were  hoping  one  day  that 
he  had,  but  I  fear  he  has  nothing  but  his  pictures 
and  books,  and  a  no  very  flourishing  business,  and  to 
be  obliged  to  part  with  his  long-necked  Guido  that 
hangs  opposite  as  you  enter,  and  the  game-piece  that 
hangs  in  the  back  drawing-room,  and  all  those  Van- 
dykes, &c.  God  should  temper  the  wind  to  the  shorn 
connoisseur.  I  hope  I  need  not  say  to  you,  that  I 
feel  for  the  weather-beaten  author,  and  for  all  his 
household.  I  assure  you  his  fate  has  soured  a  good 
deal  the  pleasure  I  should  have  otherwise  taken  in 
my  own  little  farce  being  accepted,  and  I  hope  about 
to  be  acted  —  it  is  in  rehearsal  actually,  and  I  expect 
it  to  come  out  next  week.  It  is  kept  a  sort  of  secret, 
and  the  rehearsals  have  gone  on  privately,  lest  by 
many  folks  knowing  it,  the  story  should  come  out, 
which  would  infallibly  damn  it.  You  remember  I 
had  sent  it  before  you  went.  Wroughton  read  it, 
and  was  much  pleased  with  it.  I  speedily  got  an 
answer.  I  took  it  to  make  alterations,  and  lazily 
kept  it  some  months,  then  took  courage  and  furbished 
it  up  in  a  day  or  two  and  took  it.  In  less  than  a 
fortnight  I  heard  the  principal  part  was  given  to 
ElHston,  who  liked  it  and  only  wanted  a  prologue, 
which  I  have  since  done  and  sent,  and  I  had  a  note 
the  day  before  yesterday  from  the  manager,  Wrough- 


LETTERS    TO    MANNING.  225 

ton  (bless  his  fat  face  —  he  is  not  a  bad  actor  in 
some  things),  to  say  that  I  should  be  summoned  to 
the  rehearsal  after  the  next,  which  next  was  to  be 
yesterday.  I  had  no  idea  it  was  so  forward.  I  have 
had  no  trouble,  attended  no  reading  or  rehearsal, 
made  no  interest ;  what  a  contrast  to  the  usual  parade 
of  authors  !  But  it  is  peculiar  to  modesty  to  do  all 
things  without  noise  or  pomp !  I  have  some  suspicion 
it  will  appear  in  public  on  Wednesday  next,  for  W. 
says  in  his  note,  it  is  so  forward  that  if  wanted  it 
may  come  out  next  week,  and  a  new  melodrame  is 
announced  for  every  day  till  then ;  and  '  a  new  farce 
is  in  rehearsal,'  is  put  up  in  the  bills.  Now  you'd 
like  to  know  the  subject.  The  title  is  'Mr.  H.,'  no 
more  ;  how  simple,  how  taking !  A  great  H  sprawl- 
ing over  the  play-bill  and  attracting  eyes  at  every 
corner.  The  story  is  a  coxcomb  appearing  at  Bath, 
vastly  rich  —  all  the  ladies  dying  for  him  —  all  burst- 
ing to  know  who  he  is  —  but  he  goes  by  no  other 
name  than  Mr.  H.  —  a  curiosity  like  that  of  the 
dames  of  Strasburg  about  the  man  with  the  great 
nose.  But  I  won't  tell  you  any  more  about  it.  Yes, 
I  will :  but  I  can't  give  you  an  idea  how  I .  have 
done  it.  I'll  just  tell  you  that  after  much  vehement 
admiration,  when  his  true  name  comes  out,  'Hogsflesh,' 
all  the  women  shun  him,  avoid  him,  and  not  one  can 
be  found  to  change  their  name  for  him  —  that's  the 
idea — how  flat  it  is  here — but  how  wliimsical  in  the 
farce  !  and  only  think  how  hard  upon  me  it  is  that 
the  ship  is  despatched  to-morrow,  and  my  triumph 
cannot  be  ascertained  till  the  Wednesday  after  —  but 
all  China  will  ring  of  it  by  and  by.  N.  B.  (But 
this  is  a  secret.)     The    Professor   has  got  a  tragedy 

VOL.  I.  15 


226  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

coming  out  with  the  young  Roscius  in  it  in  January 
next,  as  we  say  —  January  last  it  will  be  with  you 
—  and  though  it  is  a  profound  secret  now,  as  all  his 
affairs  are,  it  cannot  be  much  of  one  by  the  time 
you  read  this.  However,  don't  let  it  go  any  further. 
I  understand  there  are  dramatic  exhibitions  in  China. 
One  would  not  like  to  be  forestalled.  Do  you  find 
in  all  this  stuff  I  have  written  anything  like  those 
feelings  which  one  should  send  my  old  adventuring 
friend  that  is  gone  to  wander  among  Tartars  and  may 
never  come  again  ?  I  don't  —  but  your  going  away, 
and  all  about  you,  is  a  threadbare  topic.  I  have  worn 
it  out  with  thinkino;  —  it  has  come  to  me  when  I  have 
been  dull  with  anything,  till  my  sadness  has  seemed 
more  to  have  come  from  it  than  to  have  introduced 
it.  I  want  you,  you  don't  know  how  much  —  but  if 
I  had  you  here  in  my  European  garret,  we  should 
but  talk  over  such  stuff  as  I  have  written  —  so  — 
Those  '  Tales  from  Shakspeare '  are  near  coming  out, 
and  Marv  has  beo;un  a  new  work.  Mr.  Dawe  is 
turned  author,  he  has  been  in  such  a  way  lately  — 
Dawe,  the  painter,  I  mean  —  he  sits  and  stands  about 
at  Holcroft's  and  says  nothing  —  then  sighs  and  leans 
his  head  on  his  hand.  I  took  him  to  be  in  love  — 
but  it  seems  he  was  only  meditating  a  work,  —  '  The 
Life  of  Morland,'  —  the  young  man  is  not  used  to 
composition.  Rickman  and  Captain  B urn ey  are  well; 
they  assemble  at  my  house  pretty  regularly  of  a 
Wednesday  —  a  new  institution.  Like  other  great 
men    I   have  a  public  day,  cribbage  and  pipes,  with 

Phillips  and  noisy . 

"  Good  Heaven  !    what   a   bit   only  I've   got   left ! 
How  shall   I   squeeze   all   I   know  into   this    morsel ! 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  227 

Coleridge  is  come  home,  and  is  going  to  turn  lectm'er 
on  taste  at  the  Royal  Institution.  I  shall  get  200?. 
from  the  theatre  if  '  Mr.  H.'  has  a  good  run,  and  I 
hope  100?.  for  the  copyright.  Nothing  if  it  fails ; 
and  there  never  was  a  more  ticklish  thing.  The 
whole  depends  on  the  manner  in  which  the  name  is 
brought  out,  which  I  value  myself  on,  as  a  chef- 
dHoeuvre.  How  the  paper  grows  less  and  less !  In 
less  than  two  minutes  I  shall  cease  to  talk  to  you, 
and  you  may  rave  to  the  great  ^Wall  of  China.  N. 
B.  Is  there  such  a  wall !  Is  it  as  big  as  Old  Lon- 
don Wall,  by  Bedlam  ?  Have  you  met  with  a  friend 
of  mine,  named  Ball,  at  Canton  ?  —  if  you  are  ac- 
quainted, remember  me  kindly  to  him.  N.  B.  If  my 
httle  thing  don't  succeed,  I  shall  easily  survive,  having, 
as  it  were,  compared  to  H.'s  ventm'e,  but  a  sixteenth 
in  the  lottery.  Mary  and  I  are  to  sjt  next  the  or- 
chestra in  the  pit,  next  the  tweedle-dees.  She  re- 
members you.  You  are  more  to  us  than  five  hundred 
farces,  clappings,  &c. 

"  Come  back  one  day.  C.  Lamb." 

"Wednesday,  10th  December,  1806,  was  the  wished- 
for  evening  which  decided  the  fate  of  "  Mr.  H."  on 
the  boards  of  Drury.  Great  cunosity  was  excited 
by  the  announcement ;  the  house  was  crowded  to  the 
ceiling ;  and  the  audience  impatiently  awaited  the 
conclusion  of  the  long,  dull,  intolerable  opera  of  "  The 
Travellers,"  by  which  it  was  preceded.  At  length, 
Mr.  Elliston,  the  hero  of  the  farce,  entered,  gayly 
dressed,  and  in  happiest  spirits,  —  enough,  but  not 
too  much,  elated,  —  and  delivered  the  prologue  with 
great  vivacity  and  success.     The  farce  began ;  at  first 


228  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

it  was  much  applauded ;  but  tlie  wit  seemed  wire- 
drawn ;  and  when  the  curtain  fell  on  the  first  act, 
the  friends  of  the  author  began  to  fear.  The  second 
act  dragged  heavily  on,  as  second  acts  of  farces  will 
do ;  a  rout  at  Bath,  peopled  with  ill-dressed  and  over- 
dressed actors  and  actresses,  increased  the  disposition 
to  yawn ;  and  when  the  moment  of  disclosure  came, 
and  nothing  worse  than  the  name  Hogsflesh  was  heard, 
the  audience  resented  the  long  play  on  their  curiosity, 
and  would  hear  no  more.  Lamb,  with  his  sister,  sat, 
as  he  anticipated,  in  the  front  of  the  pit,  and  having 
joined  in  encoring  the  prologue,  the  brilliancy  of 
which  injured  the  farce,  he  gave  way  with  equal  pli- 
ancy to  the  common  feeling,  and  hissed  and  hooted 
as  loudly  as  any  of  his  neighbors.  The  next  morn- 
ing's play-bill  contained  a  veracious  announcement, 
that  '■'■the  new, farce  of  Mr.  H.,  performed  for  the 
first  time  last  nighty  was  received  by  an  overflowing 
audience  with  universal  applause,  and  will  he  repeated 
for  the  second  time  to-morrow ; "  but  the  stage  lamps 
never  that  morrow  saw !  Elliston  would  have  tried 
it  again  ;  but  Lamb  saw  at  once  that  the  case  was 
hopeless,  and  consoled  his  friends  with  a  century  of 
puns  for  the  wreck  of  his  dramatic  hopes. 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  229 


CHAPTER  IX. 

[1807  to  1814.] 

LETTERS    TO    MANNING,    MONTAGUE,    WORDSWORTH,    AND 

COLERIDGE. 

From  this  period,  the  letters  of  Lamb  which  have 
been  preserved  are  comparatively  few,  with  reference 
to  the   years  through  which  they  are  scattered.     He 
began  to  write  in  earnest  for  the  press,  and  the  time 
thus  occupied  was  withdrawn  from  his  correspondents, 
while  his  thoughts  and  feelings  were  developed  by  a 
different   excitement,    and    expressed    in    other   forms. 
In  the  year  1807  the  series  of  stories  founded  on  the 
plays  of  Shakspeare,  referred  to  in   his  last  letter  to 
Manning,   was   published ;    in   which    the  outlines    of 
his  plots  are  happily  brought  within  the  apprehension 
of  children,  and  his  language  preserved  wherever  it 
was  possible  to  retain  it ;  a  fit  counterpoise  to  those 
works  addressed  to  the  young  understanding,  to  which 
Lamb  still  cherished  the  strong  distaste  which  broke 
out   in   one   of  his    previous   letters.     Of  these  tales, 
King  Lear,  Macbeth,  Timon  of  Athens,  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  Hamlet,  and  Othello,  are  by  Charles,  and  the 
others  by  Mary  Lamb  ;  hers  being,  as  Lamb  always 
insisted,  the  most  felicitous,  but  all  well  adapted  to  in- 
fuse some  sense  of  the  nobleness  of  the  poet's  thoughts 
into  the  hearts  of  their  little  readers.     Of  two  other 
works   preparing  for  the   press,   he  thus  speaks  in  a 
letter  which  bears  date  26th  February,  1808,  addressed 
to  Manning  at  Canton,  in  reply  to  a  letter  received 


230  LETTERS   TO  MANNING. 

thence,  in  which  Manning  informed  Lamb,  that  he 
had  consigned  a  parcel  of  silk  to  a  Mr.  Knox  for 
him. 

TO    MR.   MANNING. 

"  Dear  Missionary^,  — Your  letters  from  the  farthest 
ends  of  the  world  have  arrived   safe.     Mary  is  very 
thankful  for  your  remembrance  of  her ;  and  with  the 
less  suspicion  of  mercenariness,  as  the  silk,  the  symbo- 
lum  materiale  of  your  friendship,  has  not  yet  appeared. 
I  think  Horace  says  somewhere,  nox  longa.     I  would 
not  impute  negligence  or  unhandsome  delays  to  a  per- 
son whom  you  have  honored  with  your  confidence,  but 
I  have  not  heard  of  the  silk,  or  of  Mr.  Knox,  save  by 
your  letter.     Maybe  he  expects  the  first  advances  !  or 
it  may  be  that  he  has  not  succeeded  in  getting  the  arti- 
cle on  shore,  for  it  is  among  the  res  prohibitce  et  non 
nisi  smuggl&-ationis  vid  fruendce.     But  so  it  is,  in  the 
friendships  between  tvicked  7nen,  the  very  expressions 
of  their  good-will  cannot  but  be  sinful.     I  suppose  you 
know  my  farce  was  damned.       The  noise   still  rings 
in  my  ears.     Was  you  ever  in   the  pillory  ?  —  being 
damned  is  something  like  that.     A  treaty  of  marriage 
is  on  foot  between  William  Hazlitt  and  Miss  Stoddart. 
Something  about  settlements  only  retards  it.      Little 
Fenwick  (you  don't  see  the  connection  of  ideas  here, 
how  the  devil  should  you  ?)  is  in  the  rules  of  the  Fleet. 
Cruel  creditors  !  operation  of  iniquitous  laws  !  is  Magna 
Charta  then  a  mockery  ?    Why,  in  general  (here  I  sup- 
pose you  to  ask  a  question)  my  spirits  are  pretty  good, 
but  I  have  my  depressions,  black  as  a  smith's  beard, 
Vulcanic,  Stygian.     At  such  times  I  have  recourse  to 
a  pipe,  which  is  like  not  being  at  home  to  a  dun ;  he 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  231 

comes  again  with  tenfold  bitterness  the  next  day.  — 
(Mind,  I  am  not  in  debt,  I  only  borrow  a  similitude 
from  others  ;  it  shows  imagination.)     I  have  done  two 
books  since  the  failure  of  my  farce  ;  they  will  both  be 
out  this  summer.     The  one  is  a  juvenile  book  —  '  The 
Adventures  of  Ulysses,'  intended  to  be  an  introduction 
to  the  reading  of  Telemachus  !    it  is  done  out  of  the 
Odyssey,  not  from  the  Greek.     I  would  not  mislead 
you  :  nor  yet  fi'om  Pope's  Odyssey,  but  from  an  older 
translation  of  one  Chapman.     The  '  Shakspeare  Tales ' 
suggested  the  doing  it.     Godwin  is  in  both  those  cases 
my  bookseller.     The  other  is  done  for  Longman,  and 
is  '  Specimens  of  English  Dramatic  Poets  contempo- 
rary with  Shakspeare.'     Specimens  are  becoming  fash- 
ionable.    We  have  —  '  Specimens  of  Ancient  English 
Poets '  —  '  Specimens   of    Modern   English    Poets  ' — 
'  Specimens  of  Ancient  English  Prose  Writers,'  with- 
out end.     They  used  to   be   called   '  Beauties.'     You 
have   seen  '  Beauties  of  Shakspeare  ?  '  so   have  many 
people   that   never   saw    any  beauties  in    Shakspeare. 
Longman  is  to  print  it,  and  be  at  all  the  expense  and 
risk,  and  I  am  to  share  the  profits  after  all  deductions, 
i.   e.  a  year  or  two  hence  I  must  pocket  what  they 
please  to  tell  me  is  due  to  me.     But  the  book  is  such 
as  I  am  glad  there  should  be.     It  is  done  out  of  old 
plays  at  the  Museum,  and  out  of  Dodsley's  collection, 
&c.     It  is  to  have  notes.     So  I  go  creeping  on  since  I 
was   lamed  with  that  cursed  fall  from  off  the  top  of 
Drury-Lane  Theatre  into  the  pit,  something  more  than 
a  year  ago.     However,  I  have  been  free  of  the  house 
ever  since,  and  the  house  was  pretty  free  with  me  upon 
that  occa-iion.     Hang  'em  hoAv  they  hissed  !  it  was  not 
a  hiss  neither,  but  a  sort  of  a  frantic  yell,  like  a  con- 


232  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

gregation  of  mad  geese,  with  roaring  sometimes  like 
bears,  mows  and  mops  like  apes,  sometimes  snakes,  that 
hiss'd  me  into  madness.  'Twas  like  St.  Anthony's 
temptations.  Mercy  on  us,  that  God  should  give  his 
favorite  children,  men,  mouths  to  speak  with,  to  dis- 
course rationally,  to  promise  smoothly,  to  flatter  agree- 
ably, to  encourage  warmly,  to  counsel  wisely,  to  sing 
with,  to  drink  with,  and  to  kiss  with,  and  that  they 
should  turn  them  into  mouths  of  adders,  bears,  wolves, 
hyenas,  and  whistle  like  tempests,  and  emit  breath 
through  them  like  distillations  of  aspic  poison,  to  asperse 
and  vilify  the  innocent  labors  of  their  fellow-creatures 
who  are  desirous  to  please  them  !  Heaven  be  pleased 
to  make  the  teeth  rot  out  of  them  all,  therefore  I 
Make  them  a  reproach,  and  all  that  pass  by  them  to 
loll  out  their  tongue  at  them  !  Blind  mouths  !  as  Mil- 
ton somewhere  calls  them.  Do  you  like  Braham's  sing- 
ing ?  The  little  Jew  has  bewitched  me.  I  follow  him 
like  as  the  boys  followed  Tom  the  Piper.  1  was  insen- 
sible to  music  till  he  gave  me  a  new  sense.  Oh  that 
you  could  go  to  the  new  opera  of  Kais  to-night !  'Tis 
all  about  Eastern  manners  ;  it  would  just  suit  you.  It 
describes  the  wild  Arabs,  wandering  Egj'ptians,  lying 
dervises,  and  all  that  sort  of  people,  to  a  hair.  You 
needn't  ha'  gone  so  far  to  see  what  you  see,  if  you  saw 
it  as  I  do  every  night  at  Drury-Lane  Theatre.  Bra- 
ham's  singing,  when  it  is  impassioned,  is  finer  than 
Mrs.  Siddons',  or  Mr.  Kemble's  acting  ;  and  when  it 
is  not  impassioned,  it  is  as  good  as  hearing  a  person  of 
fine  sense  talking.  The  brave  little  Jcav  !  I  made  a 
pun  the  other  day,  and  palmed  it  upon  Holcroft,  who 
grinned  like  a  Cheshire  cat.  (Why  do  cats  grin  in 
Cheshire  ?  —  because   it  was   once  a  county  palatine, 


LETTERS   TO    MANNING.  233 

and  the  cats  cannot  help  laugliing  whenever  they  think 
of  it,  thouD-h  I  see  no  great  joke  in  it.)  I  said  that 
Holcroft  said,  being  asked  who  were  the  best  dramatic 
writers  of  the  dav, '  Hook  and  I.'  Mr.  Hook  is  author 
of  several  pieces,  Tekeli,  &c.  You  know  what  hooks  and 
eyes  are,  don't  you  ?  Your  letter  had  many  things  in 
it  hard  to  be  understood:  the  puns  were  ready  and 
Swift-like ;  but  don't  you  begin  to  be  melancholy  in 
the  midst  of  Eastern  customs !  '  The  mind  does  not 
easily  conform  to  foreign  usages,  even  in  trifles  :  it  re- 
quires something  that  it  has  been  familiar  with.'  That 
begins  one  of  Dr.  Hawkesworth's  papers  in  the  Adven- 
turer, and  is,  I  think,  as  sensible  a  remark  as  ever  fell 
from  the  Doctor's  mouth.  White  is  at  Christ's  Hos- 
pital, a  wit  of  the  first  magnitude,  but  had  rather  be 
thought  a  gentleman,  like  Congreve.  You  know  Con- 
greve's  repulse  which  he  gave  to  Voltaire,  when  he 
came  to  visit  him  as  a  literary  man,  that  he  wished  to 
be  considered  only  in  the  light  of  a  private  gentleman. 
I  think  the  impertinent  Frenchman  was  properly  an- 
swered. I  should  just  serve  any  member  of  the  French 
institute  in  the  same  manner,  that  wished  to  be  intro- 
duced to  me. 

"  Does  any  one  read  at  Canton  ?  Lord  Moira  is 
President  of  the  Westminster  Library.  I  suppose  you 
might  have  interest  with  Sir  Joseph  Banks  to  get  to 
be  president  of  any  similar  institution  that  should  be 
set  up  at  Canton.  I  think  public  reading-rooms  the 
best  mode  of  educating  young  men.  Solitary  reading 
is  apt  to  give  the  headache.  Besides,  who  knows  that 
you  do  read  ?  There  are  ten  thousand  institutions  sim- 
ilar to  the  Royal  Institution  which  have  sprung  up  from 
it.     There  is  the  London  Institution,  the  South wark 


234  LETTERS  TO   MANNING. 

Institution,  the  Russell-Square  Rooms  Institution,  &c. — 
College  quasi  Con-lege,  a  place  where  people  read  to- 
gether. Wordsworth,  the  great  poet,  is  coming  to 
town ;  he  is  to  have  apartments  in  the  Mansion  House. 
Well,  my  dear  Manning,  talking  cannot  be  infinite  ;  I 
have  said  all  I  have  to  say  ;  the  rest  is  but  remem- 
brances, which  we  shall  bear  in  our  heads  of  you  while 
we  have  heads.  Here  is  a  packet  of  trifles  nothing 
worth  ;  but  it  is  a  trifling  part  of  the  world  where  I 
live  ;  emptiness  abounds.  But  in  fulness  of  affection, 
we  remain  yours, 

"  C.  L." 

The  two  books  referred  to  in  this  letter  were  shortly 
after  published.  "The  Adventures  of  Ulysses"  had 
some  tinge  of  the  quaintness  of  Chapman  ;  it  gives  the 
plot  of  the  earliest  and  one  of  the  most  charming  of 
romances,  without  spoiling  its  interest.  The  "Speci- 
mens of  Enorlish  Dramatic  Poets  who  lived  about  the 
time  of  Shakspeare,"  were  received  with  more  favor 
than  Lamb's  previous  works,  though  it  was  only  by 
slow  and  imperceptible  degrees  that  they  won  their  way 
to  the  apprehensions  of  the  most  influential  minds,  and 
wrought  out  the  genial  purpose  of  the  editor  in  renew- 
ing a  taste  for  the  great  contemporaries  of  Shakspeare. 
"The  Monthly  Review"  vouchsafed  a  notice*  in  its 
laro-e  print,  upon  the  whole  favorable,  according  to 
the  existing  fashion  of  criticism,  but  still  "  craftily 
qualified."  It  will  scarcely  be  credited,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  article  itself,  that  on  the  notes  the  critic 
pronounces  this  judgment :  "  The  notes  before  us  in- 
deed have  nothing  very  remarkable,  except  the  style, 

*  April,  1809. 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  235 

which  is  formally  abrupt  and  elaborately  quaint.  Some 
of  the  most  studied  attempts  to  display  excessive  feeling 
we  had  noted  for  animadversion,  but  the  task  is  un- 
necessary," &c. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  of  readers  strongly  dissenting 
from  some  of  the  passionate  eulogies  of  these  notes,  and 
even  taking  offence  at  the  boldness  of  the  allusions  ; 
but  that  any  one  should  read  these  essences  of  criti- 
cism, suggesting  the  profoundest  thoughts,  and  replete 
throughout  with  fine  imagery,  and  find  in  them  "  noth- 
ing remarkable,"  is  a  mystery  which  puzzles  us.  But 
when  the  same  critic  speaks  of  the  heroine  of  the 
"Broken  Heart"  as  "the  light-heeled  Calantha,"  it 
is  easy  to  appreciate  his  fitness  for  sitting  in  judgment 
on  the  old  English  drama  and  the  congenial  expositor 
of  its  grandeurs ! 

In  this  year  Miss  Lamb  published  her  charming 
work,  entitled  "  Mrs.  Leicester's  School,"  to  which 
Lamb  contributed  three  of  the  tales.  The  best,  how- 
ever, are  his  sister's,  as  he  delighted  to  insist ;  and  no 
tales  more  happily  adapted  to  nurture  all  sweet  and 
childlike  feelinjTs  in  children  were  ever  written. 
Another  joint  publication,  "  Poetry  for  Children," 
followed,  which  also  is  worthy  of  its  title. 

Early  in  1809,  Lamb  removed  fi'om  Mitre-Court 
Buildings  to  Southampton  Buildings,  but  only  for  a 
few  months,  and  preparatory  to  a  settlement  (which  he 
meant  to  be  final)  in  the  Temple.  The  next  letter  to 
Manning  (still  in  China),  of  28th  March,  1809,  is 
from  Southampton  Buildings. 


236  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 


"  Dear  Manning,  —  I  sent  you  a  long  letter  by  the 
ships  which  sailed  the  beginning  of  last  month,  accom- 
panied  with    books,  &c.     Since  I  last  wrote  is 

dead.  So  there  is  one  of  your  friends  whom  you  will 
never  see  again!  Perhaps  the  next  fleet  may  bring 
you  a  letter  from  Martin  Burney,  to  say  that  he  writes 
by  desire  of  Miss  Lamb,  who  is  not  well  enough  to 
write  herself,  to  inform  you  that  her  brother  died  on 
Thursday  last,  14th  June,  &c.  But  I  hope  not.  I 
should  be  sorry  to  give  occasion  to  open  a  correspond- 
ence between  Martin  and  you.  This  letter  must  be 
short,  for  I  have  driven  it  off  to  the  very  moment  of 
doing  up  the  packets ;  and  besides,  that  which  I  refer 
to  above  is  a  very  long  one  ;  and  if  you  have  received 
my  books,  you  will  have  enough  to  do  to  read  them. 
While  I  think  on  it,  let  me  tell  you,  we  are  moved. 
Don't  come  any  more  to  Mitre-Court  Buildings.  We 
are  at  34,  Southampton  Buildings,  Chancery  Lane,  and 
shall  be  here  till  about  the  end  of  May,  then  we  re- 
move to  No.  4,  Inner  Temple-Lane,  where  I  mean  to 
live  and  die ;  for  I  have  such  horror  of  moving,  that  I 
would  not  take  a  benefice  from  the  King,  if  I  was  not 
indulo:ed  with  non-residence.  What  a  dislocation  of 
comfort  is  comprised  in  that  word  moving  I  Such  a 
heap  of  little  nasty  things,  after  you  think  all  is  got 
into  the  cart :  old  dredging-boxes,  worn-out  brushes, 
gallipots,  vials,  things  that  it  is  impossible  the  most  ne- 
cessitous person  can  ever  want,  but  which  the  Avomen, 
who  preside  on  these  occasions,  will  not  leave  behind  if 
it  was   to  save  your  soul ;    they'd   keep  the  cart  ten 


LETTERS   TO  MANNING.  237 

minutes  to  stow  in  dirty  pipes  and  broken  matches,  to 
show  their  economy.  Then  you  can  find  nothing  you 
want  for  many  days  after  you  get  into  your  new  lodg- 
ings. You  must  comb  your  hair  with  your  fingers, 
wash  your  hands  without  soap,  go  about  in  dirty 
gaiters.  Was  I  Diogenes,  I  would  not  move  out  of  a 
kilderkin  into  a  hogshead,  though  the  first  had  had 
nothing  but  small  beer  in  it,  and  the  second  reeked 
claret.  Our  place  of  final  destination,  —  I  don't  mean 
the  grave,  but  No.  4,  Inner-Temple  Lane,  —  looks  out 
upon  a  gloomy  churchyard-like  court,  called  Hare 
Court,  with  three  trees  and  a  pump  in  it.  Do  you 
know  it?  I  was  born  near  it,  and  used  to  drink  at 
that  pump  when  I  was  a  Rechabite  of  six  years  old. 
If  you  see  newspapers  you  will  read  about  Mrs.  Clarke. 
The  sensation  in  London  about  this  nonsensical  busi- 
ness is  marvellous.  I  remember  nothing  in  my  life  like 
it.  Thousands  of  ballads,  caricatures,  lives  of  Mrs. 
Clarke,  in  every  blind  alley.  Yet  in  the  midst  of  this 
stir,  a  sublime  abstracted  dancing-master,  who  attends 
a  family  we  know  at  Kensington,  being  asked  a  ques- 
tion about  the  progress  of  the  examinations  in  the 
House,  inquired  who  Mrs.  Clarke  was  ?  He  had  heard 
nothing  of  it.  He  had  evaded  this  omnipresence  by 
utter  insignificancy !  The  Duke  should  make  that 
man  his  confidential  valet.  I  proposed  locking  him  up, 
barring  him  the  use  of  his  fiddle  and  red  pumps,  until 
he  had  minutely  perused  and  committed  to  memory, 
the  whole  body  of  the  examinations,  which  employed 
the  House  of  Commons  a  fortnight,  to  teach  him  to  be 
more  attentive  to  what  concerns  the  public.  I  think  I 
I  told  you  of  Godwin's  little  book,  and  of  Coleridge's 
prospectus,  in  my  last ;  if  I  did  not,  remind  me  of  it, 


238  LETTEKS  TO  MANNING. 

and  I  will  send  you  them,  or  an  account  of  them,  next 
fleet.     I   have   no    conveniency  of   doing  it  by  this. 

Mrs. grows  every   day  in  disfavor  with  me.      I 

will  be  buried  with  this  inscription  over  me :  — '  Here 
lies  C.  L.,  the  woman-hater: '  I  mean  that  hated  one 
woman :  for  the  rest,  God  bless  them !  How  do  you 
like  the  Mandarinesses  ?  Are  you  on  some  little  foot- 
ing with  any  of  them  ?  This  is  Wednesday.  On 
Wednesdays  is  my  levee.  The  Captain,  Martin,  Phil- 
lips, (not  the  sheriff,)  Rickman,  and  some  more,  are 
constant  attendants,  besides  stray  visitors.  We  play  at 
whist,  eat  cold  meat  and  hot  potatoes,  and  any  gentle- 
man that  chooses  smokes.  Why  do  you  never  drop  in  ? 
You'll  come  some  day,  won't  you  ? 

"  C.    Lamb,  &c." 

His  next  is  after  his  removal  to  the  Temple  :  — 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"Jan.  2nd,  1810. 

"  Dear  Manning,  —  When  I  last  wrote  you  I  was  in 
lodgings.  I  am  now  in  chambers.  No.  4,  Inner-Temple 
Lane,  where  I  should  be  happ}?-  to  see  you  any  evening. 
Bring  any  of  your  friends,  the  Mandarins,  with  you. 
I  have  two  sitting-rooms :  I  call  them  so  par  excellence^ 
for  you  may  stand,  or  loll,  or  lean,  or  try  any  posture 
in  them,  but  they  are  best  for  sitting  ;  not  squatting 
down  Japanese  fashion,  but  the  more  decorous  mode 
which  European  usage  has  consecrated.  I  have  two  of 
these  rooms  on  the  third  floor,  and  five  sleeping,  cook- 
ing, &c.,  rooms,  on  the  fourth  floor.  In  my  best  room 
is  a  choice   collection    of  the  works  of  Hogarth,    an 


LETTERS  TO   MANNING.  239 

Eno-Hsh  painter,  of  some  humor.  In  my  next  best  are 
shelves  containing  a  small,  but  well-chosen  library. 
My  best  room  commands  a  court,  in  which  there  are 
trees  and  a  pump,  the  water  of  which  is  excellent  cold, 
with  brandy,  and  not  very  insipid  without.  Here  I 
hope  to  set  up  my  rest,  and  not  quit  till  Mr.  Powell, 
the  undertaker,  gives  me  notice  that  I  may  have  pos- 
session of  my  last  lodging.  He  lets  lodgings  for  single 
gentlemen.  I  sent  you  a  parcel  of  books  by  my  last, 
to  give  you  some  idea  of  the  state  of  European  litera- 
ture. There  comes  with  this  two  volumes,  done  up  as 
letters,  of  minor  poetry,  a  sequel  to  '  Mrs.  Leicester ; ' 
the  best  you  may  suppose  mine  ;  the  next  best  are  my 
coadjutor's  ;  you  may  amuse  yourself  in  guessing  them 
out ;  but  I  must  tell  you  mine  are  but  one-third  in 
quantity  of  the  whole.  So  much  for  a  veiy  delicate 
subject.  It  is  hard  to  speak  of  one's  self,  &c.  Holcroft 
had  finished  his  life  when  I  wrote  to  you,  and  Hazlitt 
has  since  finished  his  life  ;  I  do  not  mean  his  own  life, 
but  he  has  finished  a  fife  of  Holcroft,  which  is  going  to 
press.  Tuthill  is  Dr.  Tuthill.  I  continue  Mr.  Lamb. 
I  have  published  a  little  book  for  children  on  titles  of 
honor :  and  to  give  them  some  idea  of  the  difference  of 
rank  and  gradual  rising,  I  have  made  a  httle  scale, 
supposing  myself  to  receive  the  following  various  ac- 
cessions of  dignity  from  the  king,  who  is  the  fountain 
of  honor  —  As  at  first,  1,  Mr.  C.  Lamb ;  2,  C.  Lamb, 
Esq.  ;  3,  Sir  C.  Lamb,  Bart. ;  4,  Baron  Lamb  of 
Stamford  ;*  5,  Viscount  Lamb ;  6,  Earl  Lamb  ;  7, 
Marquis  Lamb  ;  8,  Duke  Lamb.  It  would  look  like 
quibbling  to  carry  it  on  further,  and  especially  as  it  is 

*  "  Where  my  family  came  from.     I  have  chosen  that,  if  ever  I  should 
have  my  choice." 


240  LETTERS    TO  MANNING. 

not  necessary  for  children  to  go  beyond  the  ordinary 
titles  of  sub-regal  dignity  in  our  own  country,  other- 
wise I  have  sometimes  in  my  dreams  imagined  myself 
still  advancing,  as  9th,  King  Lamb  ;  10th,  Emperor 
Lamb  ;  11th,  Pope  Innocent,  higher  than  which  is 
nothing.  Puns  I  have  not  made  many,  (nor  punch 
much),  since  the  date  of  my  last ;  one  I  cannot  help 
relating.  A  constable  in  Salisbury  Cathedral  was  tell- 
ing me  that  eight  people  dined  at  the  top  of  the  spire 
of  the  cathedral,  upon  which  I  remarked,  that  they 
must  be  very  sharp  set.  But  in  general  I  cultivate  the 
reasoning  part  of  my  mind  more  than  the  imaginative. 
I  am  stuffed  out  so  with  eating  turkey  for  dinner,  and 
another  turkey  for  supper  yesterday  (Turkey  in  Europe 
and  Turkey  in  Asia),  that  I  can't  jog  on.  It  is  New- 
year  here.  That  is,  it  was  New-year  half  a  year  back, 
when  I  was  writing  this.  Nothing  puzzles  me  more 
than  time  and  space,  and  yet  nothing  puzzles  me  less, 
for  I  never  think  about  them.  The  Persian  ambas- 
sador is  the  principal  thing  talked  of  now.  I  sent  some 
people  to  see  him  worship  the  sun  on  Primrose  Hill,  at 
hah-past  six  in  the  morning,  28th  November  ;  but  he 
did  not  come,  which  makes  me  think  the  old  fire-wor- 
shippers are  a  sect  almost  extinct  in  Persia.  The  Per- 
sian ambassador's  name  is  Shaw  Ali  Mirza.  The 
common  people  call  him  Shaw  nonsense.  While  I 
think  of  it,  I  have  put  three  letters,  besides  my  own 
three,  into  the  India  post  for  you,  from  your  brother, 
sister,  and  some  gentleman  whose  name  I  forget.  Will 
they,  have  they,  did  they  come  safe  ?  The  distance 
you  are  at,  cuts  up  tenses  by  the  root.  I  think  you 
said  you  did  not  know  Kate  *********  I  ex- 
press her  by  nine  stars,  though  she  is  but  one.     You 


LETTERS  TO   MANNING.  241 

must  have  seen  her  at  her  father's.  Try  and  remem- 
ber her,  Coleridge  is  bringing  out  a  paper  in  weekly- 
numbers,  called  the  '  Friend,'  which  I  would  send  if  I 
could  ;  but  the  difficulty  I  had  in  getting  the  packets 
of  books  out  to  you  before  deters  me ;  and  you'll  want 
something  new  to  read  when  you  come  home.  Except 
Kate,  I  have  had  no  vision  of  excellence  this  year,  and 
she  passed  by  like  the  queen  on  her  coronation  day ; 
you  don't  know  whether  you  saw  her  or  not.  Kate  is 
fifteen :  I  go  about  moping,  and  sing  the  old  pathetic 
ballad  I  used  to  like  in  my  youth  — 

'  She's  sweet  fifteen, 
I'm  one  year  mwe.'' 

"  Mrs.  Bland  sung  it  in  boy's  clothes  the  first  time  I 
heard  it.  I  sometimes  think  the  lower  notes  in  my 
voice  are  like  Mrs.  Bland's.  That  glorious  singer, 
Braham,  one  of  my  lights,  is  fled.  He  was  for  a 
season.  He  was  a  rare  composition  of  the  Jew,  the 
gentleman,  and  the  angel,  yet  all  these  elements  mixed 
up  so  kindly  in  him,  that  you  could  not  tell  which  pre- 
ponderated ;  but  he  is  gone,  and  one  Phillips  is  engaged 

instead.     Kate  is  vanished,  but  Miss  B is  always 

to  be  met  with  ! 

'  Queens  drop  away,  while  bhie-legged  Maiikin  thrives; 
And  courtly  Mildred  dies  while  country  Madge  survives.' 

That  is  not  my  poetry,  but  Quarles's  ;  but  haven't  you 
observed  that  the  rarest  thino-s  are  the  least  obvious  ? 
Don't  show  anybody  the  names  in  this  letter.  I  write 
confidentially,  and  wish  this  letter  to  be  considered  as 
private.  Hazlitt  has  written  a  grammar  for  Godwin  ; 
Godwin  sells  it  bound  up  with  a  treatise  of  his  own  on 

VOL.   I.  16 


242  LETTERS  TO  MANNING. 

language,  but  the  gray  mare  is  the  better  horse.     I  don't 

allude  to  Mrs. ,  but  to  the  word  grammar,  which 

comes  near  to  gray  mare,  if  you  observe,  in  sound. 
That  figure  is  called  paronomasia  in  Greek.  I  am  some- 
times happy  in  it.  An  old  woman  begged  of  me  for 
charity.  '  Ah  !  sir,'  said  she, '  I  have  seen  better  days; ' 
'  So  have  I,  good  woman,'  I  replied ;  but  I  meant  lit- 
erally, days  not  so  rainy  and  overcast  as  that  on  which 
she  begged  ;  she  meant  more  prosperous  days.  Mr. 
Dawe  is  made  associate  of  the  Royal  Academy.  By 
what  law  of  association  I  can't  guess.  Mrs.  Holcroft, 
Miss  llolcroft,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Godwin,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Hazlitt,  Mrs,  Martin  and  Louisa,  Mrs.  Lum,  Capt. 
Burney,  Mrs.  Burney,  Martin  Burney,  Mr.  Rickman, 
Mrs.  Rickman,  Dr.  Stoddart,  William  Dollin,  Mr. 
Thompson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norris,  Mr.  Fenwick,  Mrs. 
Fenwick,  Miss  Fenwick,  a  man  that  saw  you  at  our 
house  one  day,  and  a  lady  that  heard  me  speak  of 
you  ;  Mrs.  BufFam  that  heard  Hazlitt  mention  you, 
Dr.  Tuthill,  Mrs.  Tuthill,  Colonel  Harwood,  Mrs. 
Harwood,  Mr.  Collier,  Mrs.  Collier,  Mr.  Sutton, 
Nurse,  Mr.  Fell,  Mrs.  Fell,  Mr.  Marshall,  are  very 
well,  and  occasionally  inquire  after  you. 
"  I  remain  youi's  ever, 

"  Ch.  Lamb." 

In  the  summer  of  1810,  Lamb  and  his  sister  spent 
their  holidays  with  Hazlitt,  who,  having  married  Miss 
Stoddart,  was  living  in  a  house  belonging  to  his  wife's 
family  at  Winterslow,  on  the  border  of  Salisbury 
Plain.  The  following  letter  of  12th  July,  in  this 
year,  was  addressed  to  Mr.  Montague,  who  had  urged 
him  to  employ  a  part  of  his  leisure  in  a  compilation. 


LETTER  TO   MONTAGUE.  243 

TO   MR.   MONTAGUE. 

"  Sarum,  July  12th,  1810. 

"  Dear  Montague,  —  I  have  turned  and  twisted  the 
MSS.  in  my  head,  and  can  make  nothing  of  them. 
I  knew  when  I  took  them  that  I   could  not,  hut  I 
do  not  hke  to  do  an   act   of  ungracious  necessity  at 
once ;  so  I  am  ever  committing  myself  by  half  en- 
gagements,  and  total  failures.      I  cannot  make  any- 
body understand  why  I  can't  do  such  things ;  it  is  a 
defect  in   my  occiput.      I   cannot   put  other  people's 
thoughts   together  ;    I  forget  every  paragraph  as  fast 
as  I  read  it ;  and  my  head  has  received  such  a  shock 
by  an  all-night  journey  on  the  top  of  the  coach,  that 
I  shall  have  enough  to  do  to  nurse  it  into  its  natu- 
ral pace  before  I  go  home.     I  must  devote  myself  to 
imbecility  ;  I  must  be  gloriously  useless  while  I  stay 
here.     How  is  Mrs.  M.  ?  will  she  pardon   my  ineffi- 
ciency ?     The  city  of  Salisbury  is  full  of  weeping  and 
wailing.      The  bank  has  stopped  payment ;  and  every- 
body in  the  town  kept  money  at  it,  or  has  got  some 
of  its  notes.      Some   have   lost  all   they  had   in  the 
world.     It  is  the  next  thing  to  seeing  a  city  with  the 
plague  within  its  walls.     The  Wilton  people  are  all 
undone ;  all  the  manufacturers  there  kept  cash  at  the 
Salisbury  bank  ;  and  I  do  suppose  it  to  be  the  unhap- 
piest   county  in   England    this,   where  I   am   making 
holiday.     We  propose  setting  out  for  Oxford  Tuesday 
fortnight,  and  coming  thereby  home.      But  no  more 
night    travelling.      My    head    is   sore  (understand    it 
of  the  inside)  with  that  deduction  from  my  natural 
rest  which  1   suffered  coming  down.      Neither   Mary 
nor  I  can  spare  a  morsel  of  our  rest :  it  is  incumbent 


244  POSTSCRIPT   TO  MISS   WORDSWORTH. 

on  us  to  be  misers  of  it.  Travelling  is  not  good  for 
us,  we  travel  so  seldom.  If  the  sun  be  hell,  it  is  not 
for  the  fire,  but  for  the  sempiternal  motion  of  that 
miserable  body  of  light.  How  much  more  dignified 
leisure  hath  a  mussel  glued  to  his  unpassable  rocky 
limit,  two  inch  square  !  He  hears  the  tide  roll  over 
him,  backwards  and  forwards  twice  a-day  (as  the  Sal- 
isbury long  coach  goes  and  returns  in  eight-and-forty 
hours),  but  knows  better  than  to  take  an  outside 
night-place  a  top  on't.  He  is  the  owl  of  the  sea  — 
Minerva's  fish  —  the  fish  of  wisdom. 

"  Our  kindest  remembrances  to  Mrs.  M. 

"  Yours  truly,  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  is  Lamb's  postscript  to  a  letter  of 
Miss  Lamb  to  Miss  Wordsworth,  after  their  return 
to  London  : 

"  Mary  has  left  a  little  space  for  me  to  fill  up  with 
nonsense,  as  the  geographers  used  to  cram  monsters 
in  the  voids  of  the  maps,  and  call  it  Terra  Incognita. 
She  has  told  you  how  she  has  taken  to  water  like  a 
hungry  otter.  I  too  limp  after  her  in  lame  imitation, 
but  it  goes  against  me  a  little  at  first.  I  have  been 
acquaintance  with  it  now  for  full  four  days,  and  it 
seems  a  moon.  I  am  full  of  cramps,  and  rheumatisms, 
and  cold  internally,  so  that  fire  won't  warm  me ;  yet 
I  bear  all  for  virtue's  sake.  Must  I  then  leave  you, 
gin,  rum,  brandy,  aqua-vitae,  pleasant  jolly  fellows  ? 
Hang   temperance  and   he  that  first   invented  it !  — 

some  Anti-Noahite.      C has  powdered  his  head, 

and  looks  like  Bacchus,  Bacchus  ever  sleek  and  young. 
He  is  going  to  turn  sober,  but  his  clock  has  not  struck 


ESTABLISHMENT    OF    THE   "REFLECTOR."  245 

yet;  meantime  lie  pours  down  goblet  after  goblet, 
the  second  to  see  where  the  first  is  gone,  the  third 
to  see  no  harm  happens  to  the  second,  a  fourth  to 
say  there  is  another  coming,  and  a  fifth  to  say  he  is 
not  sure  he  is  the  last." 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year,  the  establishment  of  a 
Quarterly  Magazine,  entitled  the  "  Reflector,"  opened 
a  new  sphere  for  Lamb's  powers  as  a  humorist  and 
critic.  Its  editor,  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  having  been  ed- 
ucated in  the  same  school,  enjoyed  many  associations 
and  friendships  in  common  with  him,  and  was  thus 
able  to  excite  in  Lamb  the  greatest  motive  for  exer- 
tion in  the  zeal  of  kindness.  In  this  Magazine  ap- 
peared some  of  Lamb's  noblest  effusions ;  his  essay 
"  On  Garrick  and  Acting,"  which  contains  the  char- 
acter of  Lear,  perhaps  the  noblest  criticism  ever  writ>- 
ten,  and  on  the  noblest  human  subject ;  his  delightful 
"  Essays  on  Hogarth  ;  "  his  "  Farewell  to  Tobacco," 
and  several  of  the  choicest  of  his  gayer  pieces. 

The  number  of  the  Quarterly  Review,  for  Decem- 
ber, 1811,  contained  an  attack  upon  Lamb,  which  it 
would  be  difficult,  as  well  as  painful  to  characterize 
as  it  deserves.  Mr.  Weber,  in  his  edition  of  "  Ford," 
had  extracted  Lamb's  note  on  the  catastrophe  of  "The 
Broken  Heart,"  in  which  Lamb,  speaking  of  that 
which  he  regarded  as  the  highest  exhibition  of  tragic 
suffering  which  human  genius  had  depicted,  dared  an 
allusion  which  was  perhaps  too  bold*  for  those  who 
did  not  understand  the  peculiar  feeling  by  which  it 
was  suggested,  but  which  no  unprejudiced  mind  could 
mistake  for  the  breathing  of  other  than  a  pious  spirit. 


246  ESTABLISHMENT    OF  THE  "REFLECTOR." 

In  reviewing  Mr.  Weber,  the  critic,  who  was  also  the 
editor  of  the  Review,  thus  complains  of  the  quotation : 
—  "We  have  a  more  serious  charge  to  brincr  against 
the  editor  than  the  omission  of  points,  or  the  misappre- 
hension of  words.  He  has  polluted  his  pages  with  the 
blasphemies  of  a  poor  maniac^  who,  it  seems,  once  pub- 
lished some  detached  scenes  of  the  '  Broken  Heart.' 
For  this  unfortunate  creature,  every  feeling  mind  will 
find  an  apology  in  his  calamitous  situation  ;  but  for  Mr. 
Weber,  we  know  not  where  the  warmest  of  his  friends 
will  find  palliation  or  excuse."  It  would  be  unjust  to 
attribute  this  paragraph  to  the  accidental  association  of 
Lamb  in  literary  undertakings  with  persons  like  Mr. 
Hunt,  strongly  opposed  to  the  political  opinions  of  Mr. 
Gifford.  It  seems  rather  the  peculiar  expression  of  the 
distaste  of  a  small  though  acute  mind  for  an  original 
power  which  it  could  not  appreciate,  and  which  dis- 
turbed the  conventional  associations  of  which  it  was 
master,  aggravated  by  bodily  weakness  and  disease. 
Notwithstanding  this  attack,  Lamb  was  prompted  by 
his  admiration  for  Wordsworth's  "  Excursion,"  to  con- 
tribute a  review  of  that  work,  on  its  appearance,  to  the 
Quarterly,  and  he  anticipated  great  pleasure  in  the 
poet's  approval  of  his  criticism ;  but  when  the  review 
appeared,  the  article  was  so  mercilessly  mangled  by  the 
editor,  that  Lamb  entreated  Wordsworth  not  to  read  it. 
For  these  grievances  Lamb  at  length  took  a  very  gen- 
tle revenge  in  the  following 

SONNET. 

SAINT  CRISPIN  TO  MR.  GIFFORD. 

All  unadvised  and  in  an  evil  hour, 

Lured  by  aspiring  thoughts,  my  son,  you  daft 

The  lowly  labors  of  the  "  Gentle  Craft  " 


TRIUMPH   OF  THE  WHALE.  247 

For  learned  toils,  which  blood  and  spirits  sour. 
All  things,  dear  pledge,  are  not  in  all  men's  power; 
The  v.iser  sort  of  shrub  afifects  the  ground; 
And  sweet  content  of  mind  is  oftener  found 
In  cobbler's  parlor  than  in  critic's  bower. 
The  sorest  work  is  what  doth  cross  the  grain ; 
And  better  to  this  hour  you  had  been  plying 
The  obsequious  awl,  with  well-waxed  finger  flying, 
Than  ceaseless  thus  to  till  a  thankless  vein: 
Still  teasing  muses,  which  are  still  denying; 
Making  a  stretching-leather  of  your  brain. 
St.  Crispin's  Eve. 

Lamb,  as  we  have  seen,  cared  nothing  for  politics  ; 
yet  his  desire  to  serve  his  friends  sometimes  induced 
him  to  adopt  for  a  short  time  their  view  of  puhhc 
affairs,  and  assist  them  with  a  harmless  pleasantry. 
The  following  epigram,  on  the  disappointment  of  the 
Whig  associates  of  the  Regent  appeared  in  the  "  Ex- 


ammer." 


Ye  politicians,  tell  me,  pray. 
Why  thus  with  woe  and  care  rent? 
This  is  the  worst  that  you  can  say, 
Some  wind  has  blown  the  Wig  away 
And  left  the  Hair  Apparent. 

The  following,  also  published  in  the "  same  paper, 
would  probably  have  only  caused  a  smile  if  read  by  the 
Regent  himself,  and  may  now  be  repubhshed  without 
offence  to  any  one.  At  the  time  when  he  wrote  it. 
Lamb  used  to  stop  any  passionate  attacks  upon  the 
prince,  with  the  smiling  remark,  "  I  love  my  Regent." 

THE  TRIUMPH   OF  THE  WHALE. 

lo!  Paean!    lo!  sing. 
To  the  finny  people's  king. 
Not  a  mightier  whale  than  this 
In  the  vast  Atlantic  is. 
Not  a  fatter  fish  than  he 
Flounders  round  the  Polar  sea. 
See  his  blubber —  at  his  gills 


248  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  WHALE. 

What  a  world  of  drink  he  swills ! 
From  his  trunk,  as  from  a  spout, 
Which  next  moment  he  pours  out. 

Such  his  person. —  Next  declare. 
Muse,  who  his  companions  are:  — 
Every  fish  of  generous  kind 
Scuds  aside,  or  slinks  behind; 
But  about  his  presence  keep 
All  the  monsters  of  the  deep; 
Mermiiids,  with   their  tails  and  singing, 
His  delighted  fancy  stinging; 
Crooked  dolphins,  they  surround  him; 
Dog-like  seals,  thej'  fawn  around  him; 
Following  hard,  the  progress  mark 
Of  the  intolerant  salt  sea-shark; 
For  his  solace  and  relief. 
Fiat-fish  are  his  courtiers  chief; 
Last,  and  lowest  in  his  train, 
Ink-fish  (libellers  of  the  main) 
Their  black  liquor  shed  in  spite: 
( Such  on  earth  the  things  that  write. ) 
In  his  stomach,  some  do  say, 
No  good  thing  can  ever  stay : 
Had  it  been  the  fortune  of  it 
To  have  swallow'd  that  old  prophet. 
Three  days  there  he'd  not  have  dwell'd, 
But  in  one  have  been  expell'd. 
Hapless  mariners  ai'e  they, 
Who  beguiled  (as  seamen  say). 
Deeming  him  some  rock  or  island. 
Footing  sure,  safe  spot,  and  dry  land, 
Anchor  in  his  scaly  rind  — 
Soon  the  ditterence  tliey  find; 
Sudden,  plumb!  he  sinks  beneath  them, 
Does  to  ruthless  seas  bequeath  them. 

Name  or  title  what  has  he? 
Is  he  Regent  of  the  Sea? 
From  this  difficulty  free  us, 
Buffon,  Banks,  or  sage  Linnaus. 
With  his  wondrous  attributes 
Say  what  appellation  suits? 
By  his  bulk,  and  by  his  size, 
By  his  oily  qualities, 
This  (or  else  my  eyesight  fails), 
This  should  be  the  Prince  of  WAales. 

The   devastation    of  the    Parks  in    the   summer  of 


LETTER  TO   WORDSWORTH.  249 

1814,  by  reason  of  the  rejoicings  on  the  visit  of  the 
Allied  Sovereigns,  produced  the  following  letter  from 
Lamb  to  Wordsworth. 


TO  MR  WORDSWORTH. 

"  Aug.  9th,  1814. 

"  Save  for  a  late  excursion  to  Harrow,  and  a  day  or 
two  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames  this  summer,  rural 
images  were  fast  fading  from  my  mind,  and  by  the  wise 
provision  of  the  Regent  all  that  was  countrified  in  the 
parks  is  all  but  obliterated.  The  very  color  of  green 
is  vanished,  the  whole  surface  of  Hyde  Park  is  dry 
crumbling  sand  (Arabia  Arenosa),  not  a  vestige  or 
hint  of  grass  ever  having  grown  there  ;  booths  and 
drinking-places  go  all  round  it,  for  a  mile  and  a  half,  I 
am  confident  —  I  might  say  two  miles,  in  circuit  —  the 
stench  of  liquors,  had  tobacco,  dirty  people  and  pro- 
visions, conquers  the  air,  and  we  are  all  stified  and  suf- 
focated in  Hyde  Park.  Order  after  order  has  been 
issued  by  Loi'd  Sidmouth  in  the  name  of  the  Regent 
(acting  in  behalf  of  his  Royal  father)  for  the  dispersion 
of  the  varlets,  but  in  vain.  The  vis  unita  of  all  the 
publicans  in  London,  Westminster,  Marylebone,  and 
miles  round,  is  too  powerful  a  force  to  put  down.  The 
Regent  has  raised  a  phantom  which  he  cannot  lay. 
There  they'll  stay  probably  forever.  The  whole  beauty 
of  the  place  is  gone  —  that  lake-look  of  the  Serpen- 
tine—  it  has  got  foolish  ships  upon  it  —  but  some- 
thing whispers  to  have  confidence  in  nature  and  its 
revival  — 

At  the  coming  of  the  milder  day, 

These  monuments  shall  all  be  overgrown. 

Meantime  I  confess  to  have  smoked  cfhe  delicious  pipe 


250  LETTER  TO  WORDSWORTH. 

in  one  of  the  cleanliest  and  goodliest  of  the  booths  ;  a 
tent  rather  — 

'  Oh  call  it  not  a  booth !  ' 

erected  by  the  public  spirit  of  Watson,  who  keeps  the 
Adam  and  Eve  at  Pancras,  (the  ale-houses  have  all 
emigrated,  with  their  train  of  bottles,  mugs,  cork- 
screws, waiters,  into  Hyde  Park  —  whole  ale-houses, 
with  all  their  ale !)  in  company  with  some  of  the 
Guards  that  had  been  in  France,  and  a  fine  French 
girl,  habited  like  a  princess  of  banditti,  which  one  of 
the  dogs  had  transported  from  the  Garonne  to  the  Ser- 
pentine. The  unusual  scene  in  Hyde  Park,  by  candle- 
light, in  open  air,  —  good  tobacco,  bottled  stout, — 
made  it  look  like  an  interval  in  a  campaign,  a  repose 
after  battle.  I  almost  fancied  scars  smarting,  and  was 
ready  to  club  a  story  with  my  comrades,  of  some  of 
my  lying  deeds.  After  all,  the  fireworks  were  splendid  ; 
the  rockets  in  clusters,  in  trees  and  all  shapes,  spread- 
ing about  like  young  stars  in  the  making,  floundering 
about  in  space  (like  unbroke  horses,)  till  some  of  New- 
ton's calculations  should  fix  them  ;  but  then  they  went 
out.  Any  one  who  could  see  'em,  and  the  still  finer 
showers  of  gloomy  rain-fire  that  fell  sulkily  and  angrily 
from  'em,  and  could  go  to  bed  without  dreaming  of  the 
last  day,  must  be  as  hardened  an  atheist  as . 

"  Again  let  me  thank  you  for  your  present,  and 
assure  you  that  fireworks  and  triumphs  have  not  dis- 
tracted me  fi'om  receiWng  a  calm  and  noble  enjoyment 
from  it,  (which  I  trust  I  shall  often,)  and  I  sincerely 
congi'atulate  you  on  its  appearance. 

"  With  kindest  remembrances  to  you  and  household, 
we  remain,  yours  sincerely, 

*  "C.  Lamb  and  Sister." 


LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE.  251 

The  following  are  fragments  of  letters  to  Coleridge 
in  the  same  month.  The  first  is  in  answer  to  a  solicita- 
tion of  Coleridge  for  a  supply  of  German  books. 


TO  ME.    COLERIDGE. 

"  13th  Aug.  1814. 

"  Dear  Resuscitate,  —  There  comes  to  you  by  the 
vehicle  from  Lad-lane  this  day  a  volume  of  German  ; 
what  it  is  I  cannot  justly  say,  the  characters  of  those 
northern  nations  having  been  always  singularly  harsh 

and  unpleasant  to  ihe.     It  is  a  contribution  of  Dr. 

towards  your  wants,  and  you  would  have  had  it  sooner 
but  for  an  odd  accident.  I  wrote  for  it  three  days  ago, 
and  the  Doctor,  as  he  thought,  sent  it  me.  A  book  of 
like  exterior  he  did  send,  but  being  disclosed,  how  far 
unlike  !  It  was  the  '  Well-bred  Scholar,' —  a  book 
with  which  it  seems  the  Doctor  laudably  fills  up  those 
hours  which  he  can  steal  from  his  medical  avocations. 
Chesterfield,  Blair,  Beattie,  portions  fi:-om  '  The  Life  of 
Savage,'  make  up  a  prettyish  system  of  morality  and 
the  belles-lettres,  which  Mr.  Mylne,  a  schoolmaster, 
has  properly  brought  together,  and  calls  the  collection 
by  the  denomination  above  mentioned.  The  Doctor 
had  no  sooner  discovered  his  error,  than  he  dispatched 
man  and  horse  to  rectify  the  mistake,  and  with  a  jiretty 
kind  of  ingenuous  modesty  in  his  note,  seemeth  to  deny 
any  knowledge  of  the  '  Well-bred  Scholar  ;  '  false 
modesty  surely,  and  a  blush  misplaced  ;  for,  what  more 
pleasing  than  the  consideration  of  professional  austerity 
thus  relaxing,  thus  improving  !  But  so,  when  a  child 
I  remember  blushing,  being  caught  on  my  knees  to  my 
Maker,    or   doing   otherwise   some  ''pious    and   praise- 


252  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

worthy  action  ;  noiv  I  rather  love  such  things  to  be 
seen.  Henry  Crabb  Robinson  is  out  upon  his  circuit, 
and  his  books  are  inaccessible  without  his  leave  and 
key.  He  is  attending  the  Norfolk  Circuit, —  a  short 
term,  but  to  him,  as  to  many  young  lawyers,  a  long 
vacation,  sufficiently  dreary.*  I  thought  I  could  do  no 
better  than  transmit  to  him,  not  extracts,  but  your 
very  letter  itself,  than  which  I  think  I  never  read  any- 
thing more  moving,  more  pathetic,  or  more  conducive 
to  the  purpose  of  persuasion.  The  Crab  is  a  sour  Crab 
if  it  does  not  sweeten  him.  I  think  it  would  draw 
another  third  volume  of  Dodsley  out  of  me  ;  but  you 
say  you  don't  want  any  English  books  ?  Perhaps  after 
all,  that's  as  well ;  one's  romantic  credulity  is  forever 
misleading  one  into  misplaced  acts  of  foolery.  Crab 
might  have  answered  by  this  time ;  his  juices  take  a 
long  time  supplying,  but  they'll  run  at  last, —  I  know 
they  will,  —  pure  golden  pippin.  A  fearful  rumor  has 
since  reached  me  that  the  Ci'ab  is  on  the  eve  of  setting 
out  for  France.  If  he  is  in  England  your  letter  will 
reach  him,  and  I  flatter  myself  a  touch  of  the  persua- 
sive of  my  own,  which  accompanies  it,  will  not  be 
thrown  away ;  if  it  be,  he  is  a  sloe,  and  no  true- 
hearted  crab,  and  there's  an  end.  For  that  life  of  the 
German  conjuror  which  you  speak  of,  '  Colerus  de 
Vita  Doctoris  vix-Intelligibilis,'  I  perfectly  remember 
the  last  evening  we  spent  with  Mrs.  Morgan  and  Miss 
Brent,  in  London  Street,  —  (by  that  token  we  had  raw 
rabbits  for  supper,  and  Miss  B.  prevailed  on  me  to  take 
a  glass  of  brandy  and  water  after  supper,  which  is  not 

*  A  mistake  of  Lamb's  at  which  the  excellent  person  referred  to  may 
emile,  now  that  he  has  retired  from  his  profession,  and  has  no  business 
but  the  offices  of  kindness. 


LETTEKS   TO    COLERIDGE.  253 

my  habit,)  —  I  perfectly  remembei*  reading  portions  of 
that  life  in  their  parlor,  and  I  think  it  must  be  among 
their  packages.  It  was  the  very  last  evening  we  were 
at  that  house.  What  is  gone  of  that  frank-hearted 
circle,  Morgan,  and  his  cos-lettuces  ?  He  ate  walnuts 
better  than  any  man  I  ever  knew.  Friendships  in  these 
parts  stagnate. 

"  I  am  going  to  eat  turbot,  turtle,  venison,  marrow 
pudding,  —  cold  punch,  claret,  Madeira,  —  at  our  annual 
feast,  at  half-past  four  this  day.  They  keep  bothering 
me,  (I'm  at  office,)  and  my  ideas  are  confused.  Let 
me  know  if  I  can  be  of  any  service  as  to  books.  God 
forbid  the  Architectonican  should  be  sacrificed  to  a  fool- 
ish scruple  of  some  book-proprietor,  as  if  books  did  not 
belong  with  the  highest  propriety  to  those  that  under- 
stand 'em  best. 

"  C.  Lamb." 

TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

"  26th  August,  1814. 

"  Let  the  hungry  soul  rejoice,  there  is  corn  in  Egypt. 
Whatever  thou  hast  been  told  to  the  contrary  by  design- 
ing friends,  who  perhaps  inquired  carelessly,  or  did  not 
inquire  at  all,  in  hope  of  saving  their  money,  there  is  a 
stock  of  '  Remorse '  on  hand,  enough,  as  Pople  con- 
jectures, for  seven  years'  consumption  ;  judging  from 
experience  of  the  last  two  years.  Methinks  it  makes 
for  the  benefit  of  sound  literature,  that  the  best  books 
do  not  always  go  off  best.  Inquire  in  seven  years'  time 
for  the  '  Rokebys  '  and  the  '  Laras,'  and  where  shall 
they  be  found? — fluttering  fragmentally  in  some  thread- 
paper —  whereas  thy  '  Wallenstein,'  and  thy  '  Remorse,' 
are  safe  on  Longman's  or  Pople's  shelves,  as  in  some 


254  LETTERS  TO   COLERIDGE. 

t 

Bodleian  ;  there  they  shall  remain  ;  no  need  of  a  chain 
to  hold  them  fast  —  perhaps  for  ages  —  tall  copies  — 
and  people  shan't  run  about  hunting  for  them  as  in  old 
Ezra's  shrievalty  they  did  for  a  Bible,  almost  without 
effect  till  the  great-great-grand-niece  (by  the  mother's 
side)  of  Jeremiah  or  Ezekiel  (which  was  it  ?)  remem- 
bered something  of  a  book,  with  odd  reading  in  it,  that 
iised  to  He  in  the  green  closet  in  her  aunt  Judith's  bed- 
chamber. 

"  Thy  caterer,  Price,  was  at  Hamburg  when  last 
Pople  heard  of  him,  laying  up  for  thee  like  some  miserly 
old  father  for  his  generous-hearted  son  to  squander. 

"  Mr.  Charles  Aders,  whose  books  also  pant  for  that 
free  circulation  which  thy  custody  is  sure  to  give  them, 
is  to  be  heard  of  at  his  kinsmen,  Messrs.  Jameson  and 
Aders,  No.  7,  Laurence  Pountney-Lane,  London,  ac- 
cording to  the  infoiTnation  which  Crabius  with  his  part- 
ing breath  left  me.  Crabius  is  gone  to  Paris.  I  prophesy 
he  and  the  Parisians  will  part  with  mutual  contempt. 
His  head  has  a  twist  Allemagne,  like  thine,  dear  mystic. 

"  I  have  been  reading  Madame  Stael  on  Germany. 
An  impudent  clever  woman.  But  if  '  Faust '  be  no 
better  than  in  her  abstract  of  it,  I  counsel  thee  to  let  it 
alone.  How  canst  thou  translate  the  language  of  cat- 
monkeys  ?  Fie  on  such  fantasies  !  But  I  will  not  for- 
get to  look  for  Proclus.  It  is  a  kind  of  book  when 
one  meets  with  it  one  shuts  the  lid  faster  than  one 
opened  it.  Yet  I  have  some  bastard  kind  of  recollec- 
tion that  some  where,  some  time  ago,  upon  some  stall 
or  other,  I  saw  it.  It  was  either  that,  or  Plotinus,  or 
Saint  Augustine's  'City  of  God.'  So  little  do  some 
folks  value,  what  to  others,  sc.  to  you,  '  well  used,'  had 
been  the  '  Pledge  of  Immortality.'      Bishop    Bruno  I 


INTRODUCTION   TO  LAMB.  255 

never  touched  upon.  Stuffing  too  good  for  the  brains 
of  such  '  a  Hare  '  as  thou  describest.  May  it  burst  his 
pericranium,  as  the  gobbets  of  fat  and  turpentine  (a 
nasty  thought  of  the  seer)  did  that  old  dragon  in  the 
Apocrypha  !  May  he  go  mad  in  trying  to  understand 
his  author !  May  he  lend  the  third  volume  of  him 
before  he  has  quite  translated  the  second,  to  a  friend 
who  shall  lose  it,  and  so  spoil  the  publication,  and  may 
his  friend  find  it  and  send  it  him  just  as  thou,  or  some 
such  less  dilatory  spirit  shall  have  announced  the  whole 
for  the  press  ;  lastly,  may  he  be  hunted  by  Reviewers, 
and  the  devil  jug  him.  Canst  think  of  any  other  que- 
ries in  the  solution  of  which  I  can  give  thee  satisfac- 
tion ?  Do  you  want  any  books  that  I  can  procure  for 
you  ?  Old  Jimmy  Boyer  is  dead  at  last.  Trollope 
has  got  his  living,  worth  1000^.  a-year  net.  See,  thou 
sluggard,  thou  heretic-sluggard,  what  mightest  thou 
not  have  arrived  at.  Lay  thy  animosity  against  Jimmy 
in  the  grave.     Do  not  entail  it  on  thy  posterity. 

"  Charles  Lamb." 


CHAPTER  X. 

[1815  to  1817.] 

LETTERS  TO  WORDSWORTH,  80UTHEY,  AND  MANNING. 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  1815  that  I  had 
first  the  happiness  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Lamb.     With  his  scattered   essays  and  poems  I  had 


256  INTRODUCTION    TO    LAMB. 

become  familial*  a  few  weeks  before,  through  the  instru- 
mentahty  of  Mr.  Barron  Field,  now  Chief  Justice  of 
Gibraltar,  who  had  been  brought  into  close  intimacy 
with  Lamb  by  the  association  of  his  own  family  with 
Christ's  Hospital,  of  which  his  father  was  the  surgeon, 
and  by  liis  own  participation  in  the  "  Reflector."  Liv- 
ing then  in  chambers  in  Inner-Temple  Lane,  and  attend- 
ing those  of  Mr.  Chitty,  the  special  pleader,  which 
were  on  the  next  staircase  to  Mr.  Lamb's,  I  had  been 
possessed  some  time  by  a  desire  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  writings  of  my  gifted  neighbor,  which  my 
friend  was  able  only  partially  to  gratify.  "  John 
Woodvil,"  and  the  number  of  the  "  Reflector"  enriched 
with  Lamb's  article,  he  indeed  lent  me,  but  he  had  no 
copy  of  "  Rosamund  Gray,"  which  I  was  most  anxious 
to  read,  and  which,  after  earnest  search  through  all  the 
bookstalls  within  the  scope  of  my  walks,  I  found,  exhib- 
iting proper  marks  of  due  appreciation,  in  the  store  of 
a  little  circulating  library  near  Holborn.  There  was 
something  in  this  little  romance  so  entirely  new,  yet 
breathing  the  air  of  old  acquaintance  ;  a  sense  of  beauty 
so  delicate  and  so  intense  ;  and  a  morality  so  benignant 
and  so  profound,  that,  as  I  read  it,  my  curiosity  to  see 
its  author  rose  almost  to  the  height  of  pain.  The 
commencement  of  the  new  year  brought  me  that  grati- 
fication ;  I  was  invited  to  meet  Lamb  at  dinner  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  William  Evans,  a  gentleman  holding  an 
office  in  the  India  House,  who  then  lived  in  Wey- 
mouth  Street,  and  who  was  a  proprietor  of  the  "  Pam- 
phleteer," to  which  I  had  contributed  some  idle  scrib- 
blings.  My  duties  at  the  office  did  not  allow  me  to 
avail  myself  of  this  invitation  to  dinner,  but  I  went  up 
at  ten  o'clock,  through  a  deep    snow,  palpably  congeal- 


INTRODUCTION    TO    LAMB.  257 

ing  into  ice,  and  was  amply  repaid  wlien  I  reached  the 
hospitable  abode  of  my  fiiend.  There  was  Lamb, 
preparing  to  depart,  but  he  staid  half  an  hour  in  kind- 
ness to  me,  and  then  accompanied  me  to  our  common 
home  —  the  Temple. 

Methinks  I  see  him  before  me  now,  as  he  appeared 
then,  and  as  he  continued,  with  scarcely  any  percepti- 
ble alteration  to  me,  during  the  twenty  years  of  inti- 
macy which  followed,  and  were  closed  by  his  death. 
A  light  frame,  so  fragile  that  it  seemed  as  if  a  breath 
would  overthrow  it,  clad  in  clerk-Hke  black,  was  sur- 
mounted by  a  head  of  form  and  expression  the  most 
noble  and  sweet.  His  black  hair  curled  crisply  about 
an  expanded  forehead  ;  his  eyes,  softly  brown,  twinkled 
with  varying  expression,  though  the  prevalent  feeling 
was  sad ;  and  the  nose  slightly  curved,  and  delicately 
carved  at  the  nostril,  with  the  lower  outline  of  the  face 
regularly  oval,  completed  a  head  which  was  finely 
placed  on  the  shoulders,  and  gave  importance,  and 
even  dignity,  to  a  diminutive  and  shadowy  stem. 
Who  shall  describe  his  countenance  —  catch  its  quiv- 
ering sweetness  —  and  fix  it  forever  in  words  ?  There 
are  none,  alas !  to  answer  the  vain  desire  of  friendship. 
Deep  thought,  stri\ang  with  humor  ;  the  lines  of  suf- 
fering wreathed  into  cordial  mirth  ;  and  a  smile  of 
painful  sweetness,  present  an  image  to  the  mind  it  can 
as  little  describe  as  lose.  His  personal  appearance  and 
manner  are  not  unfitly  characterized  by  what  lie  him- 
self says  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Manning  of  Bra- 
ham  —  "a  compound  of  the  Jew,  the  gentleman,  and 
the  angel."  He  took  my  arm,  and  we  Avalked  to  the 
Temple,  Lamb  stammering  out  fine  remarks  as  we 
walked  ;  and  when   we  reached  his  staircase,  he  de- 

VOL.  I.  17 


258  INTRODUCTION  TO   LAMB. 


• 


tained  me  with  an  urgency  which  would  not  be  denied, 
and  we  mounted  to  the  top  story,  where  an  old  petted 
servant,  called  Becky,  was  ready  to  receive  us.  We 
were  soon  seated  beside  a  cheerful  fire ;  hot  water  and 
its  better  adjuncts  were  befox'e  us  ;  and  Lamb  insisted 
on  my  sitting  with  him  while  he  smoked  "  one  pipe" — 
for,  alas  !  for  poor  human  natm'e  —  he  had  resumed  his 
acquaintance  with  his  "  fair  traitress."  How  often  the 
pipe  and  the  glasses  were  replenished,  I  will  not  under- 
take to  disclose  ;  but  I  can  never  forget  the  conversa- 
tion :  though  the  first,  it  was  more  solemn,  and  in 
higher  mood,  than  any  I  ever  after  had  with  Lamb 
through  the  whole  of  our  friendship.  How  it  took 
such  a  turn  between  two  strangers,  one  of  them  a  lad 
of  not  quite  twenty,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  so  it  happened. 
We  discoursed  then  of  life  and  death,  and  our  antici- 
pation of  a  world  beyond  the  grave.  Lamb  spoke  of 
these  awful  themes  with  the  simplest  piety,  but  ex- 
pressed his  own  fond  cleavings  to  life  —  to  all  well- 
known  accustomed  things  —  and  a  shivering  (not  shud- 
dering) sense  of  that  which  is  to  come,  which  he  so 
finely  indicated  in  his  "  New  Year's  Eve,"  years  after- 
wards. It  was  two  o'clock  before  we  parted,  when 
Lamb  gave  me  a  hearty  invitation  to  renew  my  visit 
at  pleasure  ;  but  two  or  three  months  elapsed  before  I 
saw  him  again.  In  the  meantime,  a  number  of  the 
"  Pamphleteer"  contained  an  "  Essay  on  the  Chief 
Living  Poets,"  among  whom  on  the  title  appeared  the 
name  of  Lamb,  and  some  page  or  two  were  expressly 
devoted  to  his  praises.  It  was  a  poor  tissue  of  tawdry 
eulogies  —  a  shallow  outpouring  of  young  enthusiasm 
in  fine  words,  which  it  mistakes  for  thoughts  ;  yet  it 
gave  Lamb,  who  had  hitherto  received  scarcely  civil 


LETTER  W   WORDSWORTH.  259 

notice  from  reviewers,  great  pleasure  to  find  that  any 
one  recoo-nized  him  as  having  a  place  among  poets. 
The  next  time  I  saw  him,  he  came  almost  breathless 
into  the  office,  and  proposed  to  give  me  what  I  should 
have  chosen  as  the  greatest  of  all  possible  honors  and 
delio-hts  —  an  introduction  to  Wordsworth,  who  I 
learned,  with  a  palpitating  heart,  was  actually  at  the 
next  door.  I  hurried  out  with  my  kind  conductor, 
and  a  minute  after  was  presented  by  Lamb  to  the  per- 
son whom  in  all  the  w^orld  I  venerated  most,  with  this 
preface  :  —  "  Wordsworth,  give  me  leave  to  introduce 
to  you  my  only  admirer." 

The  following  letter  was  addressed  to  Wordsworth, 
after  his  return  to  Westmoreland  from  this  visit :  — 


TO  MR.  WORDSWORTH. 

"  Aug.  9th,  1815. 

''  Dear  Wordsworth,  —  Mary  and  I  felt  quite  queer 
after  your  taking  leave  (you,  W.  W.)  of  us  in  St.  Giles's. 
We  wished  we  had  seen  more  of  you,  but  felt  we  had 
scarce  been  sufficiently  acknowledging  for  the  shai*e  we 
had  enjoyed  of  your  company.  We  felt  as  if  we  had 
been  not  enough  expressive  of  our  pleasure.  But  our 
manners  both  are  a  little  too  much  on  this  side  of  too- 
much  cordiality.  We  want  presence  of  mind  and 
presence  of  heart.  What  we  feel  comes  too  late,  like 
an  after-thought  impromptu.  But  perhaps  you  ob- 
served nothing  of  that  which  we  have  been  painfully 
conscious  of,  and  are  every  day  in  our  intercourse  with 
those  we  stand  affected  to  through  all  the  degrees  of 
love.     Robinson  is  on   the   circuit.     Our  panegyrist  I 


260  LETTER   TO   WO«DSWORTH. 

thought  had  forgotten  one  of  the  objects  of  his  youth- 
ful admiration,  but  I  was  agreeably  removed  from  that 
scruple  by  the  laundress  knocking  at  my  door  this 
morning,  almost  before  I  was  up,  with  a  present  of 
fruit  from  my  young  friend,  &c.  There  is  something 
inexpressibly  pleasant  to  me  in  these  presents^  be  it 
fruit,  or  fowl,  or  brawn,  or  what  not.  Books  are  a 
legitimate  cause  of  acceptance.  If  presents  be  not  the 
soul  of  friendship,  undoubtedly  they  are  the  most  spir- 
itual part  of  the  body  of  that  intercourse.  There  is 
too  much  narrowness  of  thinking  in  this  point.  The 
punctilio  of  acceptance,  methinks,  is  too  confined  and 
strait-laced.  I  could  be  content  to  receive  money,  or 
clothes,  or  a  joint  of  meat  from  a  friend.  Why  should 
he  not  send  me  a  dinner  as  well  as  a  dessert  ?  I 
would  taste  him  in  the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  through 
all  creation.  Therefore  did  the  basket  of  fruit  of  the 
juvenile  Talfourd  not  displease  me ;  not  that  I  have 
any  thoughts  of  bartering  or  reciprocating  these  things. 
To  send  him  anything  in  return  would  be  to  reflect 
suspicion  of  mercenariness  upon  what  I  know  he  meant 
a  freewill  offering.  Let  him  overcome  me  in  bounty. 
In  this  strife  a  generous  nature  loves  to  be  overcome. 
You  wish  me  some  of  your  leisure.  I  have  a  glim- 
mering aspect,  a  chink-light  of  liberty  before  me, 
which  I  pray  God  prove  not  fallacious.  My  remon- 
strances have  stirred  up  others  to  remonstrate,  and, 
altogether,  there  is  a  plan  for  separating  certain  parts 
of  business  from  our  department ;  which,  if  it  take 
place,  will  produce  me  more  time,  i.  e.  my  evenings 
free.  It  may  be  a  means  of  placing  me  in  a  more  con- 
spicuous situation,  which  will  knock  at  my  nerves 
another  way,  but  I  wait  the  issue  in  submission.     If  I 


LETTER^  TO    SOUTHEY.  261 

can  but  begin  my  own  day  at  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, I  siiall  think  myself  to  have  Eden  days  of  peace 
and  hberty  to  what  I  have  had.  As  you  say,  how  a 
man  can  fill  three  volumes  up  with  an  essay  on  the 
drama,  is  wonderful ;  I  am  sure  a  very  few  sheets 
would  hold  all  I  had  to  say  on  the  subject, 

"  Did  you  ever  read  '  Cliarron  on  Wisdom  ?  '  or 
'  Patrick's  Pilgrim  ?  '  If  neither,  you  have  two  great 
pleasures  to  come.  I  mean  some  day  to  attack  Caryl 
on  Job,  six  folios.  What  any  man  can  write,  surely 
I  may  read.  If  I  do  but  get  rid  of  auditing  ware- 
housekeepers'  accounts  and  get  no  worse-harassing  task 
in  the  place  of  it,  what  a  lord  of  liberty  I  shall  be !  I 
shall  dance,  and  skip,  and  make  mouths  at  the  invisible 
event,  and  pick  the  thorns  out  of  my  pillow,  and 
throw  'em  at  rich  men's  nightcaps,  and  talk  blank 
verse,  hoity,  toity,  and  sing  —  '  A  clerk  I  was  in  Lon- 
don gay,'  '  Ban,  ban,  Ca-Caliban,'  like  the  emanci- 
pated monster,  and  go  where  I  like,  up  this  street 
or  down  that  alley.  Adieu,  and  pray  that  it  may  be 
my  luck. 

"  Good  bye  to  you  all.  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  letter  was  inclosed  in  the  same  parcel 
with  the  last. 


TO  MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  Aug.  9th,  1815. 

"  Dear  Southey,  —  Robinson  is  not  on  the  circuit,  as 
I  erroneously  stated  in  a  letter  to  W.  W.,  which  travels 
with  this,  but  is  gone  to  Brussels,  Ostend,  Ghent,  &c. 
But  his  friends,  the  Colliers,  whom  I  consulted  respect- 


262  LETTERS  TO   S^UTHEY. 

ing  your  friend's  fate,  remember  to  have  heard  him 
say,  that  Father  Pardo  had  effected  his  escape  (the 
cunning  greasy  rogue),  and  to  the  best  of  their  behef 
is  at  present  in  Paris.  To  my  tliinking,  it  is  a  small 
matter  whether  there  be  one  fat  friar  more  or  less  in 
the  world.  I  have  rather  a  taste  for  clerical  execu- 
tions, imbibed  from  early  recollections  of  the  fate  of 
the  excellent  Dodd.  I  hear  Bonaparte  has  sued  his 
habeas  coi'pus,  and  the  twelve  judges  are  now  sitting 
upon  it  at  the  Rolls. 

"  Your  boute-feu  (bonfire)  must  be  excellent  of  its 
kind.  Poet  Settle  presided  at  the  last  great  thing  of 
the  kind  in  London,  when  the  pope  was  burnt  in  form. 
Do  you  provide  any  verses  on  this  occasion  ?  Your 
fear  for  Hartley's  intellectuals  is  just  and  rational. 
Could  not  the  Chancellor  be  petitioned  to  remove  him? 
His  lordship  took  Mr.  Betty  from  under  the  paternal 
wing.  I  think  at  least  he  should  go  through  a  course 
of  matter-of-fact  with  some  sober  man  after  the  mys- 
teries. Could  not  he  spend  a  week  at  Poole's  before 
he  goes  back  to  Oxford  ?  Tobin  is  dead.  But  there 
is  a  man  in  my  office,  a  Mr.  H.,  who  proses  it  away 
from  morning  to  night,  and  never  gets  beyond  corporal 
and  material  verities.  He'd  get  these  crack-brain 
metaphysics  out  of  the  young  gentleman's  head  as  soon 
as  any  one  I  know.  When  I  can't  sleep  o'nights,  I 
imao-ine  a  dialogue  with  Mr.  H.,  upon  any  given  sub- 
ject, and  go  prosing  on  in  fancy  with  him,  till  I  either 
lauo-h  or  fall  asleep.  I  have  literally  found  it  answer. 
I  am  going  to  stand  godfather  ;  I  don't  like  the  busi- 
ness ;  I  cannot  muster  up  decorum  for  these  occasions  ; 
I  shall  certainly  disgrace  the  font.  I  was  at  Hazlitt's 
marriao;e,  and  had  like  to  have  been  turned  out  several 


LETTERS   TO    SOUTHEY.  263 

times  during  tlie  ceremony.  Any  thing  awful  make? 
me  lauo-h,  I  misbehaved  once  at  a  funeral.  Yet  I  can 
read  about  these  ceremonies  with  pious  and  proper  feel- 
ino-s.  The  realities  of  life  only  seem  the  mockeries.  I 
fear  I  must  get  cured  along  with  Hartley,  if  not  too 
inveterate.  Don't  you  think  Louis  the  Desirable  is  in 
a  sort  of  quandaiy  ? 

"  After  all,  Bonaparte  is  a  fine  fellow,  as  my  barber 
says,  and  I  should  not  mind  standing  bareheaded  at  his 
table  to  do  him  service  in  his  fall.  They  should  have 
given  him  Hampton  Court  or  Kensington,  with  a 
tether  extending  forty  miles  round  London.  Qu. 
Would  not  the  people  have  ejected  the  Brunswicks 
some  day  in  his  favor  ?     Well,  we  shall  see. 

"  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  was  addressed  to  Southey  in  acknowl- 
edgement of  his  "  Roderick,"  the  most  sustained  and 
noble  of  his  poems. 


TO  MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"May  6th,  1815. 

"  Dear  Southey,  —  I  have  received  from  Longman 
a  copy  of  '  Roderick,'  with  the  author's  compliments, 
for  which  I  much  thank  you.  I  don't  know  where  I 
shall  put  all  the  noble  presents  I  have  lately  received 
in  that  way  ;  the  '  Excursion,'  Wordsworth's  two  last 
vols.,  and  now  '  Roderick,'  have  come  pouring  in  upon 
me  like  some  irruption  from  Helicon.  The  story  of 
the  brave  Maccabee  was  already,  you  may  be  sure, 
familiar  to  me  in  all  its  parts.  I  have,  since  the  receipt 
of  your  present,  read  it  quite  through  again,  and  with 


264  LETTERS  TO   SOUTHEY. 

no  diminished  pleasure.  I  don't  know  whether  I  ought 
to  say  that  it  has  given  me  more  pleasvire  than  any  of 
your  long  poems.  '  Kehama  '  is  doubtless  more  power- 
ful, but  I  don't  feel  that  fii'm  footing;  in  it  that  I  do  in 
'  Roderick ; '  my  imagination  goes  sinking  and  flounder- 
ing in  the  vast  spaces  of  unopened-before  systems  and 
faiths  ;  I  am  put  out  of  the  pale  of  my  old  sympathies ; 
my  moral  sense  is  almost  outraged  ;  I  can't  believe,  or, 
with  horror  am  made  to  beheve,  such  desperate  chances 
against  omnipotences,  such  disturbances  of  faith  to  the 
centre  ;  the  more  potent  the  more  painful  the  spell. 
Jove,  and  his  brotherhood  of  gods,  tottering  with  the 
giant  assailings,  I  can  bear,  for  the  soul's  hopes  are  not 
struck  at  in  such  contests ;  but  your  Oriental  almighties 
are  too  much  types  of  the  intangible  prototype  to  be 
meddled  with  without  shuddering.  One  never  connects 
what  are  called  the  attributes  with  Jupiter.  I  rnention 
only  what  diminishes  my  delight  at  the  wonder-work- 
ings of  '  Kehama,'  not  what  impeaches  its  power,  which 
I  confess  with  trembling  ;  but  '  Roderick '  is  a  com- 
fortable poem.  It  reminds  me  of  the  delight  I  took  in 
the  first  reading  of  the  '  Joan  of  Arc'  It  is  maturer 
and  better  than  that,  though  not  better  to  me  now  than 
that  was  then.  It  suits  me  better  than  Madoc.  I  am 
at  home  in  Spain  and  Christendom.  I  have  a  timid 
imagination,  I  am  afraid.  I  do  not  willingly  admit  of 
strange  beliefs,  or  out-of-the-way  creeds  or  places.  I 
never  read  books  of  travels,  at  least  not  farther  than 
Paris  or  Rome.  I  can  just  endure  Moors,  because  of 
their  connection  as  foes  with  Christians  ;  but  Abys- 
sinians,  Ethiops,  Esquimaux,  Dervises,  and  all  that 
tribe,  I  hate.  I  believe  I  fear  them  in  some  manner. 
A  Mahometan   turban  on  the  stage,  though  envelop- 


LETTERS  TO    SOUTHEY.  265 

ing  some  well  known  face  (Mr.  Cook  or  Mr.  Maddox, 
whom  I  see  another  day  good  Christian  and  Enghsh 
waiters,  innkeepers,  &c.),  does  not  give  me  pleasure 
imalloyed.  I  am  a  Christian,  Englishman,  Londoner, 
Templar.  God  help  me  when  I  come  to  put  off  these 
snug  relations,  and  to  get  abroad  into  the  world  to 
come !  I  shall  be  like  the  crotv  on  the  sand,  as  Words- 
worth has  it ;  but  I  won't  think  on  it ;  no  need  I  hope 
yet. 

"  The  parts  I  have  been  most  pleased  with,  both  on 
first  and  second  readings,  perhaps,  are  Florinda's  pallia- 
tion of  Roderick's  crime,  confessed  to  him  in  his  dis- 
guise, —  the  retreat  of  the  Palayos  family  first  discov- 
ered, —  his  being  made  king  — '  For  acclamation  one 
form  must  serve,  more  solemn  for  the  breach  of  old 
observances.''  Roderick's  vow  is  extremely  fine,  and  his 
blessing  on  the  vow  of  Alphonso  : 

'  Towards  the  troop  he  spread  his  arms, 
As  if   the  expunded  soul  diffused  Itself, 
And  carried  to  all  spirits  with  the  act 
Its  affluent  aspiration.' 

"  It  struck  me  forcibly  that  the  feeling  of  these  last 
lines  might  have  been  suggested  to  you  by  the  Cartoon 
of  Paul  at  Athens.  Certain  it  is  that  a  better  motto 
or  guide  to  that  famous  attitude  can  no  where  be  found. 
I  shall  adopt  it  as  explanatory  of  that  violent,  but  dig- 
nified motion.  I  must  read  ao-ain  Landor's  '  Julian.' 
I  have  not  read  it  some  time.  I  think  he  must  have 
failed  in  Roderick,  for  I  remember  nothing  of  him,  nor 
of  any  distinct  character  as  a  character  —  only  fine 
sounding  passages.  I  remember  thinking  also  he  had 
chosen  a  point  of  time  after  the  event,  as  it  were,  for 
Roderick  survives  to  no  use  ;  but  my  memory  is  weak, 


266  LETTER    TO    WORDSWORTH. 

and  I  will  not  wrong  a  fine  poem  by  trusting  to  it. 
The  notes  to  your  poem  I  have  not  read  again  ;  but  it 
will  be  a  take-downable  book  on  my  shelf,  and  they  will 
serve  sometimes  at  breakfast,  or  times  too  light  for  the 
text  to  be  duly  appreciated.  Though  some  of  'em, 
one  of  the  serpent  penance,  is  serious  enough,  now  I 
think  on't.  Of  Coleridge  I  hear  nothing,  nor  of  the 
Morgans.  I  hope  to  have  him,  like  a  re-appearing  star, 
standing  up  before  me  some  time  when  least  expected 
in  London,  as  has  been  the  case  w])ylear. 

"  I  am  doing  nothing  (as  the  phrase  is)  but  reading 
presents,  and  walk  away  what  of  the  day-hours  I  can 
get  from  hard  occupation.  Pray  accept  once  more  my 
hearty  thanks,  and  expression  of  pleasure  for  your 
remembrance  of  me.  My  sister  desires  her  kind 
respects  to  Mrs.   S.  and  to  all    at  Keswick. 

"  Yours  truly,  C.  Lamb." 

"  The  next  present  I  look  for  is  the  '  White  Doe.' 
Have  you  seen  Mat.  Betham's  '  Lay  of  Marie  ? '  I 
think  it  very  delicately  pretty  as  to  sentiment,  &c." 

ft 

The  following  is  an  extract  of  a  letter,  addressed 
shortly  afterwards, 

TO  MR.  WORDSWORTH. 

"  Since  I  saw  you  I  have  had  a  treat  in  the  reading 
way,  which  comes  not  every  day  ;  the  Latin  poems  of 
Vincent  Bourne,  which  were  quite  new  to  me.  What 
a  heax't  that  man  had,  all  laid  out  upon  town-scenes,  a 
proper  counterpart  to  some  peopled  extravagances.  — 
Why  I  mention  him  is,  that  your    '  Power  of  Music  ' 


LETTER  TO  WORDSWORTH.  267 

reminded  me  of  his  poem  of  the  ballad-singer  in  the 
Seven  Dials.  Do  you  remember  his  epigram  on  the 
old  woman  who  taught  Newton  the  A,  B,  C,  which, 
after  all,  he  says,  he  hesitates  not  to  call  Newton's 
Principia  ? 

"  I  was  lately  fatiguing  myself  with  going  over  a 

volume  of  fine  words  by ,  excellent  words  ;  and  if 

the  heart  could  live  by  words  alone,  it  could  desire  no 
better  regale  ;  but  what  an  aching  vacuum  of  matter  ! 
I  don't  stick  at  the  madness  of  it,  for  that  is  only  a 
consequence  of  shutting  his  eyes,  and  thinking  he  is  in 
the  age  of  the  old  Elizabeth  poets.  From  thence  I 
turned  to  V.  Bourne ;  what  a  sweet,  unpretending, 
pretty-manner'd,  matterfal  creatiu^e !  sucking  from 
every  flower,  making  a  flower  of  everything.  His  dic- 
tion all  Latin,  and  his  thoughts  all  English.  Bless 
him!  Latin  wasn't  good  enough  for  him.  Why 
wasn't  he  content  with  the  language  which  Gay  and 
Prior  wrote  in  ?  " 

The  associations  of  Christmas  increased  the  fervor 
of  Lamb's  wishes  for  Manning's  return,  which  he  now 
really  hoped  for.  On  Christmas-day  he  addressed  a 
letter  to  him  at  Canton,  and  the  next  dav  another  to 
meet  him  half-way  home,  at  St.  Helena,  &c.  There 
seems  the  distance  of  half  a  globe  between  these  let- 
ters. The  first,  in  which  Lamb  pictures  their  dearest 
common  friends  as  in  a  melancholy  future,  and  makes  it 
present  —  lying-like  dismal  truths  —  yet  with  a  reliev- 
ing consciousness  of  a  power  to  dispel  the  sad  enchant- 
ments he  has  woven,  has  perhaps  more  of  wliat  was 
peculiar  in  Lamb's  cast  of  thought,  than  anything  of 
the  same  length  which  he  has  left  us. 


268  LETTERS    TO    MANNING. 

TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  Dec.  25th,  1815. 

"  Dear  old  friend  and  absentee,  —  This  is  Christmas- 
day,  1815,  with  us  ;  what  it  niay.be  with  you  I  don't 
know,  the  12th  of  June  next  year  perhaps  ;  and  if  it 
should  be  the  consecrated  season  with  you,  I  don't  see 
how  you  can  keep  it.  You  have  no  turkeys  ;  you 
would  not  desecrate  the  festival  by  offering  up  a  with- 
ered Chinese  bantam,  instead  of  the  savory  grand  Nor- 
folcian  holocaust,  that  smokes  all  around  my  nostrils 
at  this  moment,  from  a  thousand  firesides.  Then  what 
puddings  have  you  ?  Where  will  you  get  holly  to  stick 
in  your  cliurches,  or  churches  to  stick  your  dried  tea- 
leaves  (that  must  be  the  substitute)  in  ?  What 
memorials  you  can  have  of  the  holy  time,  I  see  not. 
A  chopped  missionary  or  two  may  keep  up  the  thin 
idea  of  Lent  and  the  wilderness  ;  but  what  standing 
evidence  have  you  of  the  Nativity  ?  —  'tis  our  rosy- 
cheeked,  homestalled  divines,  whose  faces  shine  to  the 
tune  of  unto  us  a  child  was  born  ;  faces  fragrant  with 
the  mince-pies  of  half  a  century,  that  alone  can  authen- 
ticate the  cheerful  mystery  —  I  feel,  I  feel  my  bowels 
refreshed  with  the  holy  tide  —  my  zeal  is  great  against 
the  unedified  heathen.  Down  with  the  Pagodas  — 
down  with  the  idols  —  Chino;-chons;-fo  —  and  his  fool- 
ish  priesthood  !  Come  out  of  Babylon,  O  my  friend ! 
for  her  time  is  come,  and  the  child  that  is  native,  and 
the  Proselyte  of  her  gates,  shall  kindle  and  smoke 
together  !  And  in  sober  sense,  what  makes  you  so  long 
from  among  us,  Manning  ?  You  must  not  expect  to 
see  the  same  England  again  which  you  left. 

"  Empires  have   been   overturned,    crowns   trodden 


LETTERS   TO    MANNING.  2G9 

into  dixst,  the  face  of  the  western  world  quite  changed : 
your  friends  have  all  got  old  —  those  you  left  blooming 
—  myself  (who  am  one  of  the  few  that  remember  you) 
those  golden  hairs  which  you  recollect  my  taking  a 
pride  in,  turned  to  silvery  and  gray.  Mary  has  been 
dead  and  buried  many  years  —  she  desired  to  be  buried 
in  the  silk  gown  you  sent  her.  Rickman,  that  you 
remember  active  and  strong,  now  walks  out  supported 
by  a  servant-maid  and  a  stick.  Martin  Burney  is  a 
very  old  man.  The  other  day  an  aged  woman  knocked 
at  my  door,  and  pretended  to  my  acquaintance  ;  it  Avas 
long  before  I  had  the  most  distant  cognition  of  her ; 
but  at  last  together  we  made  her  out  to  be  Louisa,  the 
daughter  of  Mrs.  Topham,  formerly  Mrs.  Morton,  who 
had  been  Mrs.  Reynolds,  formerly  Mrs.  Kenney,  whose 
first  husband  was  Holcroft,  the  dramatic  writer  of  the 
last  century.  St.  Paul's  church  is  a  heap  of  ruins  ; 
the  Monument  isn't  half  so  high  as  you  knew  it,  divers 
parts  being  successively  taken  down  which  the  ravages 
of  time  had  rendered  dangerous  ;  the  horse  at  Charino: 
Cross  is  gone,  no  one  knows  whither,  —  and  all  this 
has  taken  place  while  you  have  been   settling  whether 

Ho-hing-tong  should  be  spelt  with  a ,  or  a . 

For  aught  I  see  you  had  almost  as  well  remain  where 
you  are,  and  not  come  like  a  Struldbrug  into  a  world 
where  few  were  born  when  you  went  away.  Scarce 
here  and  there  one  will  be  able  to  make  out  your  face  ; 
all  your  opinions  will  be  out  of  date,  your  jokes  obso- 
lete, your  puns  rejected  with  fastidiousness  as  wit  of 
the  last  age.  Your  way  of  mathematics  has  already 
given  way  to  a  new  method,  which  after  all  is  I  believe 
the  old  doctrine  of  Maclaurin,  new-vamped  up  with 
what  he  borrowed  of  the  negatiA^e  quantity  of  fluxions 
from  Euler. 


270  LETTERS  TO  MANNING.  > 

"  Poor  Godwin  !  I  was  passing  his  tomb  the  other 
day  in  Cripplegate  churchyard.  There  are  some  ver- 
ses upon  it  written  by  Miss ,  which  if  I  thought 

good  enough  1  would  send  you.  He  was  one  of  those 
who  would  have  hailed  your  return,  not  with  boisterous 
shouts  and  clamors,  but  with  the  complacent  gratula- 
tions  of  a  philosopher  anxious  to  promote  knowledge  as 
leading  to  happiness  —  but  his  systems  and  his  theories 
are  ten  feet  deep  in  Cripplegate  mould.  Coleridge  is 
just  dead,  having  lived  just  long  enough  to  close  the 
eyes  of  Wordsworth,  who  paid  the  debt  to  nature  but 
a  week  or  two  before  —  poor  Col.,  but  two  days  before 
he  died,  he  wrote  to  a  bookseller  proposing  an  epic 
poem  on  the  '  Wanderings  of  Cain,'  in  twenty-four 
books.  It  is  said  he  has  left  behind  him  more  than 
forty  thousand  treatises  in  criticism,  metaphysics,  and 
divinity,  but  few  of  them  in  a  state  of  completion. 
They  are  now  destined,  jDcrhaps,  to  wrap  up  spices. 
You  see  what  mutations  the  busy  hand  of  Time  has 
produced,  while  you  have  consumed  in  foolish  volun- 
tary exile  that  time  which  might  have  gladdened  your 
friends  —  benefited  your  country  ;  but  reproaches  are 
useless.  Gather  up  the  wretched  reliques,  my  friend, 
as  fast  as  you  can,  and  come  to  your  old  home.  I  will 
rub  my  eyes  and  try  to  recognize  you.  We  will  shake 
withered  hands  together,  and  talk  of  old  thino-s  —  of 
St.  Mary's  church  and  the  barber's  opposite,  where  the 
young  students  in  mathematics  used  to  assemble.  Poor 
Crips,  that  kept  it  afterwards,  set  up  a  fruiterer's  shop 
in  Trumpington  Street,  and  for  aught  I  know  resides 
there  still,  for  I  saw  the  name  up  in  the  last  journey  I 
took  there  with  my  sister  just  before  she  died.  I  sup- 
pose you  heard  that  I  had  left  the  India  House,  and 


LETTERS   TO   MANNING.  271 

gone  into  the  Fishmongers'  Almshouses  over  the 
brido-e.  I  have  a  httle  cabin  there,  small  and  homely, 
but  vou  shall  be  welcome  to  it.  You  like  oysters,  and 
to  open  them  yourself ;  I'll  get  you  some  it  you  come 
in  oyster  time.  Marshall,  Godwin's  old  friend,  is  still 
alive,  and  talks  of  the  faces  you  used  to  make. 

"  Come  as  soon  as  you  can.  C.  Lamb." 

Here  is  the  next  day's  reverse  of  the  picture. 


TO  MR.  MANNING. 

"  Dec.  26th,  1815. 

"  Dear  Manning,  —  Following  your  brother's  exam 
pie,  I  have  just  ventured  one  letter  to  Canton,  and  am 
now  hazarding  another  (not  exactly  a  duplicate)  to  St. 
Helena.  The  first  was  full  of  unprobable  romantic 
fictions,  fitting  the  remoteness  of  the  mission  it  goes 
upon  ;  in  the  present  I  mean  to  confine  myself  nearer 
to  truth  as  you  come  nearer  home.  A  coiTespond- 
ence  with  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  necessarily 
involves  in  it  some  heat  of  fancy,  it  sets  the  brain 
agoing,  but  I  can  think  on  the  half-way  house  tran- 
quilly. Your  friends  then  are  not  all  dead  or  grown 
forgetful  of  yovi  through  old  age,  as  that  lying  letter 
asserted,  anticipating  rather  what  must  happen  if  you 
kept  tarrying  on  forever  on  the  skirts  of  creation,  as 
there  seemed  a  danger  of  your  doing  —  but  they  are 
all  tolerably  well  and  in  full  and  perfect  comprehension 
of  what  is  meant  by  Manning's  coming  home  again. 

Mrs. never  lets  her  tono;ue  run  riot  more  than  in 

remembrances   of   you.       Fanny   expends    herself    in 
phrases  that  can   only   be   justified  by  her   romantic 


272  LETTERS   TO   MANNING. 

nature.  Mary  reserves  a  portion  of  your  silk,  not  to 
be  buried  in  (as  the  false  nuncio  asserts),  but  to  make 
up  spick  and  span  into  a  bran-new  gown  to  wear  when 
you  come.  I  am  the  same  as  when  you  knew  me, 
almost  to  a  surfeiting  identity.  This  very  night  I  am 
going  to  leave  off  tobacco  !  Surely  there  must  be  some 
other  world  in  which  this  unconquerable  purpose  shall 
be  realized.  The  soul  hath  not  her  generous  aspirings 
implanted  in  her  in  vain.  One  that  you  knew,  and  I 
think  the  only  one  of  those  friends  we  knew  much  of 
in  common,  has  died  m  earnest.  Poor  Priscilla !  Her 
brother  Robert  is  also  dead,  and  several  of  the  grown 
up  brothers  and  sisters,  in  the  compass  of  a  very  few 
years.  Death  has  not  otherwise  meddled  much  in  fam- 
ilies that  I  know.  Not  but  he  has  his  horrid  eye  upon 
us,  and  is  whetting  his  infernal  feathered  dart  every 
instant,  as  you  see  him  truly  pictured  in  that  impres- 
sive moral  picture,  '  The  good  man  at  the  hour  of 
death.'  I  have  in  trust  to  put  in  the  post  four  letters 
from  Diss,  and  one  from  Lynn,  to  St.  Helena,  which  I 
hope  will  accompany  this  safe,  and  one  from  Lynn,  and 
the  one  before  spoken  of  fi*om  me,  to  Canton.  But  we 
all  hope  that  these  letters  may  be  waste  paper.  I  don't 
know  why  I  have  forborne  writing  so  long.  But  it  is 
such  a  forlorn  hope  to  send  a  scrap  of  paper  straggling 
over  wide  oceans.  And  yet  I  know  when  you  come 
home,  I  shall  have  you  sitting  before  me  at  our  fire- 
side just  as  if  you  had  never  been  away.  In  such  an 
instant  does  the  return  of  a  person  dissipate  all  the 
weight  of  imaginary  perplexity  from  distance  of  time 
and  space  !  I'll  promise  you  good  oysters.  Cory  is 
dead  that  kept  the  shop  opposite  St.  Dunstan's,  but  the 
tougher  materials  of   the  shop  survive  the  perishing 


COLERIDGE'S   DISCOUESE.  273 

fi-ame  of  its  keeper.  Oysters  continue  to  flourish  there 
under  as  good  auspices.  Poor  Cory !  But  if  you 
will  absent  yourself  twenty  years  together,  you  must 
not  expect  numerically  the  same  population  to  congrat- 
ulate your  return  which  wetted  the  sea-beach  witti 
their  teai's  when  you  went  away.  Have  you  recov- 
ered the  breathless  stone-staring  astonishment  into 
which  you  must  have  been  thrown  upon  learning  at 
landing  that  an  Emperor  of  France  was  living  in  St. 
Helena  ?  What  an  event  in  the  solitude  of  the  seas  ! 
like  finding  a  fish's  bone  at  the  top  of  Plinlimmon  ; 
but  these  things  are  nothing  in  our  western  world. 
Novelties  cease  to  affect.  Come  and  try  what  your 
presence  can. 

"  God  bless  you.  —  Your  old  friend, 

"C.  Lamb." 

The  years  which  Lamb  passed  in  his  chambers  in 
Inner-Temple  Lane  were,  perhaps,  the  happiest  of  his 
life.  His  salary  was  considerably  augmented,  his  fame 
as  an  author  was  rapidly  extending  ;  he  resided  near 
the  spot  which  he  best  loved  ;  and  was  surrounded  by  a 
motley  group  of  attached  fi^iends,  some  of  them  men 
of  rarest  parts,  and  all  strongly  attached  to  him  and  to 
his  sister.  Here  the  glory  of  his  Wednesday  nights 
shone  forth  in  its  greatest  lustre.  If  you  did  not  meet 
there  the  favorites  of  fortune  ;  authors  whose  works 
bore  the  highest  price  in  Paternoster  Row,  and  Avho 
glittered  in  the  circles  of  fashion  ;  you  might  find  those 
who  had  thought  most  deeply  ;  felt  most  keenly  ;  and 
were  destined  to  produce  the  most  lasting  influences  on 
the  literature  and  manners  of  the  age.  There  Hazlitt, 
sometimes  kindling  into   fierce  passion   at  any  mention 

VOL.  1.  18 


274  COLEKIDGE'S  DISCOURSE. 

of  the  great  reverses  of  his  idol  Napoleon,  at  other 
times  bashfully  enunciated  the  finest  criticism  on  art ; 
or   dwelt  with  genial  iteration  on  a  passage  in    Chau- 
cer ;    or,  fresh  from  the  theatre,  expatiated  on  some 
new  instance  of  energy  in  Kean,  or  reluctantly  con- 
ceded a  greatness  to  Kemble ;  or  detected  some  popular 
fallacy  with   the   fairest   and   the   subtlest    reasoning. 
There  Godwin,  as  he  played  his  quiet  rubber,  or  benig- 
nantly  joined  in  the  gossip  of  the  day,  sat  an  object  of 
curiosity  and  wonder  to  the  stranger,  who  had  been  at 
one  time  shocked  or  charmed  with  his  high  speculation, 
and  at  another  awe-struck  by  the  force  and  graphic 
power   of    his   novels.       There   Coleridge    sometimes, 
though  rarely,  took  his  seat ;  and  then  the  genial  hub- 
bub of  voices  was  still  ;  critics,  philosophers,  and  poets, 
were    contented   to    listen ;    and    toil-worn    lawyers, 
clerks  from  the  India  House,  and  members  of  the  Stock 
Exchange,  grew  romantic  while  he  spoke.     Lamb  used 
to  say  that  he  was  inferior  then  to  what  he  had  been  in 
his  youth  ;  but  I  can  scarcely  believe  it ;  at  least  there 
is  nothing  in  his  early  writing  "which  gives  any  idea  of 
the  richness  of  his  mind  so  lavishly  poured  out  at  this 
time  in  his  happiest  moods.    Although  he  looked  much 
older  than  he  was,  his  hair  being  silvered  all  over,  and 
his  person  tending  to  corpulency,  there  was  about  him 
no  trace  of  bodily  sickness  or  mental  decay,  but  rather 
an  air  of  voluptuous  repose.     His  benignity  of  manner 
placed  his  auditors  entirely  at  their  ease  ;  and  inclined 
them  to  listen  delighted  to  the  sweet,  low  tone  in  which 
he  began  to  discourse  on  some  high  theme.     Whether 
he  had  won  for  his  greedy  listener  only  some  raw  lad, 
or  charmed   a  circle  of   beauty,  rank,  and  wit,  who 
hung  breathless  on  his  words,  he  talked  with  equal  elo- 


COLERIDGE'S  DISCOURSE.  275 

quence ;  for  his  subject,  not  his  audience,  inspired  him. 
At  first  his  tones  were  conversational ;  he  seemed  to 
dally  with  the  shadows  of  the  subject  and  with  fan- 
tastic images  which  bordered  it ;  but  gradually  the 
thought  grew  deeper,  and  the  voice  deepened  with  the 
thought ;  the  stream  gathering  strength,  seemed  to 
bear  along  with  it  all  things  which  opposed  its  progress, 
and  blended  them  with  its  current ;  and  stretching 
away  among  regions  tinted  with  ethereal  colors,  was 
lost  at  airy  distance  in  the  horizon  of  fancy.  His  hear- 
ers were  unable  to  grasp  his  theories,  which  were 
indeed  too  vast  to  be  exhibited  in  the  longest  conversa- 
tion ;  but  they  perceived  noble  images,  generous  sug- 
gestions, affecting  pictures  of  virtue,  which  enriched 
their  minds  and  nurtured  their  best  affections.  Cole- 
ridge was  sometimes  induced  to  recite  portions  of 
"  Christabel,"  then  enshrined  in  manuscript  from  eyes 
profane,  and  gave  a  bewitching  effect  to  its  wizard 
lines.  But  more  peculiar  in  its  beauty  than  this,  was 
his  recitation  of  Kubla  Khan.  As  he  repeated  the 
passage  — 

A  damsel  with  a  dulcimer 
In  a  vision  once  I  saw: 

It  was  an  Abyssinian  maid, 
And  on  her  dulcimer  she  played, 
Singing  of  Mont  Abora! 

his  voice  seemed  to  mount,  and  melt  into  air,  as  the 
images  grew  more  visionary,  and  the  suggested  associa- 
tions more  remote.  He  usually  met  opposition  by 
conceding  the  point  to  the  objector,  and  then  went  on 
with  his  high  argument  as  if  it  had  never  been  raised : 
thus  satisfying  his  antagonist,  himself,  and  all  who 
heard  him  ;  none  of  whom  desired  to  hear  his  discourse 
frittered  into  points,  or  displaced  by  the  near  encounter 


276  COLERIDGE'S  DISCOURSE. 

even  of  the  most  brilliant  wits.  The  first  time  I  met 
him,  which  was  on  one  of  those  Wednesday  evenings, 
we  quitted  the  party  together  between  one  and  two  in 
the  morning  ;  Coleridge  took  my  arm  and  led  me, 
nothing  loth,  at  a  very  gentle  pace,  to  his  lodgings,  at 
the  Gloucester  Coffee-house,  pouring  into  my  ear  the 
whole  way  an  argument  by  which  he  sought  to  recon- 
cile the  doctrines  of  Necessity  and  Free-will,  winding 
on  through  a  golden  maze  of  exquisite  illustration ; 
but  finding  no  end,  except  with  the  termination  of  that 
(to  me)  enchanted  walk.  He  was  only  then  on  the 
threshold  of  the  Temple  of  Truth,  into  which  his 
genius  darted  its  quivering  and  uncertain  rays,  but 
which  he  promised  shortly  to  light  up  with  unbroken 
lustre.  "  I  understood  a  beauty  in  the  words,  but  not 
the  words  :  " 

"  And  when  the  stream  of  sound, 
Which  overflowed  the  soul,  had  passed  away, 
A  consciousness  survived  that  it  had  left, 
Deposited  upon  the  silent  shore 
Of  memory,  images  and  gentle   thoughts, 
Which  cannot  die,  and  will  not  be  destroyed." 

Men  of  "  great  mark  and  likelihood  "  —  attended  those 
delightflil  suppers,  where  the  utmost  freedom  prevailed 
—  including  politicians  of  every  grade,  from  Godwin 
up  to  the  editor  of  the  "  New  Times." 

Hazlitt  has  alluded  con  amore  to  these  meetings  in 
his  Essay  "  On  the  Conversation  of  Authors,"  and  has 
reported  one  of  the  most  remarkable  discussions  which 
graced  them  in  his  Essay  "  On  Persons  one  would  wish 
to  have  seen,"  published  by  his  son,  in  the  two  volumes 
of  his  remains,  which  with  so  affectionate  a  care  he  has 
given  to  the  world.  In  this  was  a  fine  touch  of  Lamb's 
pious   feehng,  breaking    through    his  fancies    and   his 


EPISTLE  TO  AYRTON.  277 

humors,  which  Hazhtt  has  recorded,  but  which  cannot 
be  duly  appreciated,  except  by  those  who  can  recall  to 
memoiy  the  suffused  eye  and  quivering  lip  with  which  he 
stammered  out  a  reference  to  the  name  which  he  would 
not  utter.  "  There  is  only  one  other  person  I  can 
ever  think  of  after  this,"  said  he.  "  If  Shakspeare 
was  to  come  into  the  room,  we  should  aU  rise  to  meet 
him  ;  but  if  Tliat  Person  were  to  come  into  it,  we 
should  all  fall  down  and  kiss  the  hem  of  his  garment." 
Among  the  frequent  guests  in  Inner-Temple  Lane 
was  Mr.  Ayrton,  the  director  of  the  music  at  the  Ital- 
ian Opera.  To  him  Lamb  addressed  the  following 
rhymed  epistle  on  17th  May,  1817. 

TO  WILLIAM  AYRTON,  ESQ. 

My  dear  friend, 
Before  I  end, 
Have  you  any 
More  orders  for  Don  Giovanni, 
To  give 
Him  that  doth  live 
Your  faithful  Zany? 

Without  raillery, 
I  mean  Gallery 
Ones: 
For  I  am  a  person  that  shuns 
All  ostentation, 
And  being  at  the  top  of  the  fashion; 
And  seldom  go  to  operas 
But  in  fwma  pauperis  ! 

I  go  to  the  play 
In  a  very  economical  sort  of  a  way, 
Rather  to  see 
Than  be  seen; 
Though  I  'm  no  ill  sight 
Neither, 
By  candle-light 
And  in  some  kinds  of  weather 


278  EPISTLE  TO  AYRTON. 

You  might  pit  me 

For  height 
Against  Kean; 
But  in  a  grand  tragic  scene 
I'm  nothing: 
It  would  create  a  kind  of  loathing 
To  see  me  act  Hamlet; 
There  'd  be  manv  a  damn  let 

Fly 
At  my  presumption, 
If  I  should  try. 
Being  a  fellow  of  no  gumption. 

By  the  waj-^,  tell  me  candidly  how  you  relish 
This,  which  they  call 
The  lapidary  style  V 

Opinions  vary. 
The  late  Mr.  Mellish 
Could  never  abide  it; 

He  thought  it  vile. 

And  coxcombical. 
My  friend  the  poet  laureat, 
Who  is  a  great  lawyer  at 

Anything  comical, 
Was  the  first  who  tried  it; 
But  Mellish  could   never  abide  it; 
But  it  signifies  very  little  what  Mellish  said, 

Because  he  is  dead. 

For  who  can  confute 
A  body  that's  mute? 
Or  who  would  fight 
With  a  senseless  sprite  ? 

Or  think  of  troubling 
An  impenetrable  old  goblin, 
That's  dead  and  gone, 
And  stiff"  as  stone, 
To  convince  him  with  arguments  pro  and  con? 
As  if  some  live  logician, 
Bred  up  at  Merton, 
Or  Mr.  Hazlitt,  the  metaphysician,  — 
Hey,  Mr.  Ayrton? 
With  all  your  rare  tone.* 

*  From  this  it  may  at  first  appear,  that  the  author  meant  to  ascribe  vocal 
talents  to  his  friend,  the  Director  of  the  Italian  Opera;  but  it  is  merely  a 
"  line  for  rhyme."  For,  though  the  public  were  indebted  to  Mr.  A.  for 
manj'  fine  foreign  singers,  we  believe  that  he  never  claimed  to  be  himself 
a  singer. 


LETTER   TO   FIELD.  279 

For  tell  me  how  should  an  apparition 
List  to  your  call, 
Though  you  talk'd  for  ever, 

Ever  so  clever; 
When  his  ear  itself. 
By  which  he  must  hear,  or  not  hear  at  all. 
Is  laid  on  the  shelf  ? 
Or  put  the  case 
(For  more  grace). 
It  were  a  female  spectre  — 
How  could  you  expect  her 
To  take  much  gust 
In  long  speeches. 
With  her  tongue  as  dry  as  dust. 
In  a  sandy  place, 
Where  no  peaches. 
Nor  lemons,  nor  limes,  nor  oranges  hang. 
To  drop  on  the  drought  of  an  arid  harangue, 
Or  quench. 
With  their  sweet  drench. 
The  fiery  pangs  which  the  worms  inflict. 
With  their  endless  nibblings. 
Like  quibblings, 
Which  the  corpse  may  dislike,  but  can  ne'er  contradict  — 
Hey,  Mr.  Ayrton? 
With  all  your  rare  tone. 

I  am, 

C.  LAMB. 

One  of  Lamb's  most  intimate  friends  and  warmest 
admirers,  Barron  Field,  disappeared  from  the  circle  on 
being  appointed  to  a  judicial  situation  in  New  South 
Wales.  In  the  following  letter  to  him,  Lamb  renewed 
the  feeling;  with  which  he  had  addressed  Manning  at  the 
distance  of  a  hemisphere. 

TO  MR.  FIELD. 

"  Aug.  31st,  1817. 

"  My  dear  Barron,  —  The  bearer  of  this  letter  so 
far  across  the  seas  is  Mr.  Lawrey,  who  comes  out  to 
you  as  a  missionary,  and  whom  I  have  been  strongly 


280  LETTER  TO   FIELD. 

importuned  to  recommend  to  you  as  a  most  worthy 
creature  by  Mr.  Fenwick,  a  very  old,  honest  friend  of 
mine  ;  of  whom,  if  my  memory  does  not  deceive  me, 
you  have  had  some  knowledge  heretofore  as  editor  of 
'  The  Statesman,'  a  man  of  talent,  and  patriotic.  If 
you  can  show  him  any  facilities  in  his  arduous  under- 
taking, you  will  oblige  us  much.  Well,  and  how  does 
the  land  of  thieves  use  you  ?  and  hoAv  do  you  pass  yoiu: 
time,  in  your  extra-judicial  intervals  ?  Going  about 
the  streets  with  a  lantern,  hke  Diogenes,  looking  for  an 
honest  man?  You  may  look  long  enough,  I  fancy. 
Do  give  me  some  notion  of  the  manners  of  the  inhabi- 
tants where  you  are.  They  don't  thieve  all  day  long, 
do  they  ?  No  human  property  could  stand  such  con- 
tinuous battery.  And  what  do  they  do  when  they 
an't  stealing? 

"  Have  you  got  a  theatre  ?  What  pieces  are  per- 
formed ?  Shakspeare's,  I  suppose  ;  not  so  much  for 
the  poetry,  as  for  his  having  once  been  in  danger  of 
leaving  his  country  on  account  of  certain  '  small  deer. 

"  Have  you  poets  among  you  ?  Cursed  plagiarists, 
I  fancy,  if  you  have  any.  I  would  not  trust  an  idea, 
or  a  pocket-handkerchief  of  mine,  among  'em.  You 
are  almost  competent  to  answer  Lord  Bacon's  problem, 
whether  a  nation  of  atheists  can  subsist  together.  You 
are  practically  in  one  : 

'  So  thievish  'tis,  that  the  eighth  commandment  itself 
Scarce  seemeth  there   to  be.' 

Our  old  honest  world  goes  on  with  little  perceptible 
variation.  Of  course  you  have  heard  of  poor  Mitch- 
ell's death,  and  that  G.  Dyer  is  one  of  Lord  Stan- 
hope's residuaries.  I  am  afraid  he  has  not  touched 
much  of  the  residue  yet.     He  is  positively  as  lean  as 


LETTER   TO   FIELD.  281 

Cassius.     Barnes  is  going  to  Demerara,  or  Esseqviibo, 

I  am  not  quite  certain  which.     A is  turned  actor. 

He  came  out  in  genteel  comedy  at  Cheltenham  this  sea- 
son, and  has  hopes  of  a  London  engagement. 

"  For  mj  own  history,  I  am  just  in  the  same  spot, 
doing  the  same  thing  (videlicet,  little  or  nothing),  as 
when  you  left  me  ;  only  I  have  positive  hopes  that  I 
shall  be  able  to  conquer  that  inveterate  habit  of  smok- 
ing which  you  may  remember  I  indulged  in.  I  think 
of  making  a  beginning  this  evening,  viz.,  Sunday,  31st 
Aug.,  1817,  not  Wednesday,  2d  Feb.,  1818,  as  it  will 
be  perhaps  when  you  read  this  for  the  first  time. 
There  is  the  difficulty  of  writing  from  one  end  of  the 
globe  (hemispheres  I  call  'em)  to  another  !  Why,  half 
the  truths  I  have  sent  you  in  this  letter  will  become 
lies  before  they  reach  you,  and  some  of  the  lies  (which 
I  have  mixed  for  variety's  sake,  and  to  exercise  your 
judgment  in  the  finding  of  them  out)  may  be  turned 
into  sad  realities  before  you  shall  be  called  upon  to  de- 
tect them.  Such  are  the  defects  of  going  by  different 
chronologies.  Your  now  is  not  my  now  ;  and  again, 
your  then  is  not  my  then  ;  but  my  now  may  be  your 
then,  and  vice  versa.  Whose  head  is  competent  to 
these  things  ? 

"  How  does  Mrs.  Field  get  on  in  her  geography  ? 
Does  she  know  where  she  is  by  this  time  ?  I  am  not 
sure  sometimes  you  are  not  in  another  planet ;  but  then 
I  don't  like  to  ask  Capt.  Burney,  or  any  of  those  that 
know  anything  about  it,  for  fear  of  exposing  my  igno- 
rance. 

"  Our  kindest  remembrances,  however,  to  Mrs.  F., 
if  she  will  accept  of  reminiscences  fi-om  another  planet, 
or  at  least  another  hemisphei'e.  C.  L." 


282  LETTER  TO  MISS    WORDSWORTH. 

Lamb's  intention  of  spending  the  rest  of  his  days  in 
the  Middle  Temple  was  not  to  be  realized.  The  in- 
conveniences of  being  in  chambers  began  to  be  felt  as 
he  and  his  sister  grew  older,  and  in  the  autumn  of  this 
year  they  removed  to  lodgings  in  Russell  Street,  Covent 
Garden,  the  corner  house,  delightfully  situated  between 
the  two  great  theatres.  In  November,  1817,  Miss 
Lamb  announced  the  removal  to  Miss  Wordsworth  in 
a  letter,  to  which  Lamb  added  the  following :  — 


TO   MISS  WORDSWORTH. 

"  Nov.  21st,  1817. 

"Dear  Miss  Wordsworth, —  Here  we  are,  trans- 
planted from  our  native  soil.  I  thought  we  never 
could  have  been  torn  up  from  the  Temple.  Indeed  it 
was  an  ugly  wrench,  but  like  a  tooth,  now  'tis  out,  and 
I  am  easy.  We  never  can  strike  root  so  deep  in  any 
other  ground.  This,  where  we  are,  is  a  light  bit  of 
gardener's  mould,  and  if  they  take  us  up  from  it,  it  will 
cost  no  blood  and  groans,  like  mandrakes  pulled  up. 
We  are  in  the  individual  spot  I  like  best,  in  all  this 
great  city.  The  theatres,  with  all  their  noises.  Covent 
Garden,  dearer  to  me  than  any  gardens  of  Alcinoiis, 
where  we  are  morally  sure  of  the  earliest  peas  and 
'sparagus.  Bow  Street,  where  the  thieves  are  examined, 
within  a  few  yards  of  us.  Mary  had  not  been  here 
four-and-twenty  hours  before  she  saw  a  thief.  She  sits 
at  the  window  working  ;  and  casually  throwing  out  her 
eyes,  she  sees  a  concourse  of  people  coming  this  way, 
with  a  constable  to  conduct  the  solemnity.  These  little 
incidents  agreeably  diversify  a  female  life. 

"  Mary  has  brought  her  part  of  this  letter  to  an 


LETTERS  TO  WORDSWORTH,   SOUTHEY,  ETC.        283 

orthodox  and  loving  conclusion,  whicli  is  very  well,  for 
I  have  no  room  for  pansies  and  remembrances.  What 
a  nice  holiday  I  got  on  Wednesday  by  favor  of  a  prin- 
cess dying !  C.   L. 


CHAPTER  XL 

[1818  to  1820.] 

LETTERS     TO     WORDSWORTH,     SOUTHEY,    MANNING,     AND 

COLERIDGE. 

Lamb,  now  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the 
theatres,  renewed  the  dramatic  associations  of  his  youth, 
which  the  failure  of  one  experiment  had  not  chilled. 
Although  he  rather  loved  to  dwell  on  the  recollections 
of  the  actors  who  had  passed  from  the  stage,  than  to 
mingle  with  the  happy  crowds  who  hailed  the  succes- 
sive triumphs  of  Mr.  Kean,  he  formed  some  new. and 
steady  theatrical  attachments.  His  chief  favorites  of 
this  time  were  Miss  Kelly,  Miss  Burrell  of  the  Olym- 
pic, and  Munden.  The  first,  then  the  sole  support  of 
the  English  Opera,  became  a  frequent  guest  in  Great 
Russell  Street,  and  charmed  the  circle  there  by  the 
heartiness  of  her  manners,  the  delicacy  and  gentleness 
of  her  remarks,  and  her  unaffected  sensibility,  as  much 
as  she  had  done  on  the  stage.  Miss  Burrell,  a  lady  of 
more  limited  powers,  but  with  a  frank  and  noble  style, 
was  discovered  by  Lamb  on  one  of  the  visits  which  he 
paid,  on  the  invitation  of  his  old  friend  ElHston  to  the 
Olympic,  where  the  lady  performed  the  hero  of  that 
happy  parody  of  MoncriefTs  Giovanni  in  London.    To 


284  LETTER  TO   MRS.  WORDSWORTH. 

her  Lamb  devoted  a  little  article,  which  he  sent  to  the 
"  Examiner,"  in  which  he  thus  addresses  her :  —  "  But 
Giovanni,  free,  fine,  frank-spirited,  single-hearted  crea- 
ture, turning  all  the  mischief  into  ftm  as  harmless  as 
toys,  or  children's  make  believe,  what  praise  can  we  re- 
pay to  you  adequate  to  the  pleasure  which  you  have 
given  us  ?  We  had  better  be  silent,  for  you  have  no 
name,  and  our  mention  will  but  be  thought  fantastical. 
You  have  taken  out  the  sting  fi-om  the  evil  thing,  by 
what  magic  we  know  not,  for  there  are  actresses  of 
greater  merit  and  likelihood  than  you.  With  you  and 
your  Giovanni  our  spirits  will  hold  communion,  when- 
ever sorrow  or  suffering  shall  be  our  lot.  We  have 
seen  you  triumph  over  the  infernal  powers ;  and  pain 
and  Erebus,  and  the  powers  of  darkness,  are  shapes  of 
a  dream."  Miss  Burrell  soon  married  a  person  named 
Gold,  and  disappeared  from  the  stage.  To  Munden  in 
prose,  and  Miss  Kelly  in  verse.  Lamb  has  done  ample 
justice. 

Lamb's  increasing  celebrity,  and  universal  kindness, 
rapidly  increased  the  number  of  his  visitors.  He  thus 
complained,  in  wayward  mood,  of  them  to  Mrs.  Words- 
worth :  — 


TO  MRS.  WORDSWORTH. 

"  East-India  House,  18th  Feb.,  1818. 

"  My  dear  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  —  I  have  repeatedly 
taken  pen  in  hand  to  answer  your  kind  letter.  My 
sister  should  more  properly  have  done  it,  but  she  hav- 
ing failed,  I  consider  myself  answerable  for  her  debts. 
I  am  now  trying  to  do  it  in  the  midst  of  commercial 
noises,  and  with  a  quill  which  seems  more  ready  to 


LETTER   TO   MES.   WORDSWORTH.  285 

glide  into  arithmetical  figures  and  names  of  gourds, 
cassia,  cardemoms,  aloes,  ginger,  or  tea,  than  into  kind- 
ly responses  and  friendly  recollections.      The  reason 
why  I  cannot  write  letters  at  home,  is,  that  I  am  never 
alone.     Plato's —  (I  write  to  W.  W.  now)  — Plato's 
double-animal  parted  never  longed  more  to  be  recipro- 
cally reunited  in  the  system  of  its  first  creation,  than 
I  sometimes  do  to  be  but  for  a  moment  smgle  and  sepa- 
rate.    Except  my  morning's  walk  to   the  office,  which 
is  like  treading  on  sands  of  gold  for  that  reason,  I  am 
never  so.     I  cannot  walk  home  from  office,  but  some 
officious  friend  offers  his  unwelcome  courtesies  to  ac- 
company me.      All  the  morning   I  am   pestered.      I 
could  sit  and  gravely  cast  up  sums  in  great  books,  or 
compare  sum  with  sum,  and  write  '  paid  '  against  this, 
and  '  unpaid  '  against  t'other,  and  yet  reserve  in  some 
corner  of  my  mind,  '  some  darling  thoughts  all   my 
own' — faint  memory  of  some  passage  in  a  book,  or  the 
tone  of  an  absent  friend's  voice — a  snatch  of  Miss 
Burrell's  singing,  or  a  gleam  of  Fanny  Kelly's  divine 
plain  face.     The  two  operations  might  be  going  on  at 
the  same  time  without  thwarting,  as  the  sun's  two  mo- 
tions (earth's  I  mean),  or,  as  I  sometimes  turn  round 
till  I  am  giddy,  in  my  back  parlor,  while  my  sister  is 
walking  longitudinally  in  the  front ;  or,  as  the  shoulder 
of  veal  twists  round  with  the  spit,  while  the  smoke 
wreathes  up  the  chimney.    But  there  are  a  set  of  ama- 
teurs  of  the  Belles  Lettres  —  the  gay  science  —  who 
come  to  me  as  a  sort  of  rendezvous,  putting  questions 
of  criticism,  of  British   Institutions,  Lalla  Rookhs,  &c. 
— what  Coleridge  said  at  the  lecture  last  night — who 
have  the  form  of  reading  men,  but,  for  any  possible 
use  reading  can  be  to  them,  but  to  talk  of,  might  as 


286  LETTER  TO  MRS.  WORDSWORTH. 

well  have  been  Ante-Cadmeans  born,  or  have  lain 
sucking  out  the  sense  of  an  Egyptian  hieroglyph  as 
long  as  the  pyramids  will  last,  before  they  should  find 
it.  These  pests  worrit  me  at  business,  and  in  all  its 
intervals,  perplexing  my  accounts,  poisoning  my  little 
salutary  warming-time  at  the  fire,  puzzling  my  para- 
graphs if  I  take  a  newspaper,  cramming  in  between 
my  own  free  thoughts  and  a  column  of  figures,  which 
had  come  to  an  amicable  compromise  but  for  them, 
'^heir  noise  ended,  one  of  them,  as  I  said,  accompanies 
me  home,  lest  I  should  be  solitary  for  a  moment ;  he 
at  length  takes  his  welcome  leave  at  the  door;  up  I  go, 
mutton  on  table,  hungry  as  hunter,  hope  to  forget 
my  cares,  and  bury  them  in  the  agreeable  abstraction 

of  mastication  ;  knock  at  the  door,  in  comes  Mr. , 

or  Mr. ,  or  Demigorgon,  or  my  brother,  or  some- 
body, to  prevent  my  eating  alone — a  process  absolute- 
ly necessary  to  my  poor  wretched  digestion.  O,  the 
pleasure  of  eating  alone  !  —  eating  my  dinner  alone  ! 
let  me  think  of  it.  But  in  they  come,  and  make  it 
absolutely  necessary  that  I  should  open  a  bottle  of 
orange  —  for  my  meat  turns  into  stone  when  any  one 
dines  with  me,  if  I  have  not  wine.  Wine  can  mollify 
stones  ;  then  that  wine  turns  into  acidity,  acerbity, 
misanthropy,  a  hatred  of  my  interrupters  —  (God 
bless  'em  !  I  love  some  of  'em  dearly),  and  with  the 
hatred,  a  still  greater  aversion  to  their  going  away. 
Bad  is  the  dead  sea  they  bring  upon  me,  choking  and 
deadening,  but  worse  is  the  deader  dry  sand  they  leave 
me  on,  if  they  go  before  bedtime.  Come  never,  I 
would  say  to  these  spoilers  of  my  dinner ;  but  if  you 
come,  never  go  !  The  fact  is,  this  interruption  does 
not  happen  very  often,  but  every  time  it  comes  by  sur- 


LETTER   TO   MRS.    WORDSWORTH.  287 

prise,  that  present  bane  of  my  life,  orange  wine,  with 
all  its  dreary  stifling  consequences,  follows.     Evening 
company  I  should  always  like  had  I  any  mornings,  but 
I  am  satm-ated   with  human  faces   (^divine  forsooth  !) 
and  voices,  all  the  golden  morning ;  and  five  evenings 
in  a  week,  would  be  as  much  as  I  should  covet  to  be 
in  company,  but    I  assure  you  that    is    a  wonderful 
week  in  which  I  can  get  two,  or  one  to  myself.     I  am 
never  C.  L.,  but  always  C.  L.  &  Co.    He,  who  thought 
it  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone,  preserve  me  from  the 
more  prodigious  monstrosity  of  being  never  by  myself ! 
I  forget  bedtime,  but  even  there  these  sociable  frogs 
clamber  up  to  annoy  me.     Once  a  week,   generally 
some  singular  evening  that  being  alone,  I  go  to  bed  at 
the  hour   I  ought  always  to  be  abed  ;  just  close  to  my 
bedroom  window   is  the  club-room  of  a  public-house, 
where  a  set  of  singers,  I  take  them  to  be  chorus  singers 
of  the  two  theatres  (it  must  be  both  of  them),  begin 
their  orgies.    They  are  a  set  of  fellows  (as  I  conceive) 
who,  being  limited  by  their  talents  to  the  burden  of  the 
song  at  the  playhouses,  in  revenge  have  got  the  com- 
mon popular  airs  by  Bishop,  or  some  cheap  composer, 
arranged  for  chomses,  that  is,  to  be  sung  all  in  chorus. 
At  least  I  never  can  catch  any  of  the  text  of  the  plain 
song,  nothing  but  the  Babylonish  choral  howl  at  the 
tail  on't.     '  That  fury  being  quenched  ' —  the  howl  I 
mean  —  a  burden  succeeds  of  shouts  and  clapping,  and 
knockino;  of  the  table.     At  length  overtasked  nature 
drops    under    it,    and    escapes    for   a   few   hours    into 
the  society  of  the   sweet  silent  creatures   of  dreams, 
which    go    away   with    mocks    and    mows    at    cock- 
crow.    And   then  I  think  of  the   words    Christabel's 
father  used  (bless  me,  I  have  dipt  in  the  wrong  ink) 


288  LETTER  TO  MRS.  WORDSWORTH. 

to   say  every   morning   by  way  of  variety  when   he 
awoke  : 

'  Every  knell,  the  Baron  saith, 
Wakes  us  up  to  a  world  of  death' — 

or  something  hke  it.  All  I  mean  by  this  senseless  in- 
terrupted tale,  is,  that  by  my  centi-al  situation,  I  am  a 
little  over-companied.  Not  that  I  have  any  animosity 
against  the  good  creatures  that  are  so  anxious  to  drive 
away  the  harpy  solitude  from  me.  I  like  'em,  and 
cards,  and  a  cheerful  glass  ;  but  I  mean  merely  to  give 
you  an  idea  between  office  confinement  and  after-office 
society,  how  little  time  I  can  call  my  own.  I  mean 
only  to  draw  a  picture,  not  to  make  an  inference.  I 
would  not  that  I  know  of  have  it  otherwise.  I  only 
wish  sometimes  I  could  exchange  some  of  my  faces  and 
voices  for  the  faces  and  voices  which  a  late  visitation 
brought  most  welcome,  and  carried  away,  leaving  re- 
gret but  more  pleasure,  even  a  kind  of  gratitude,  at 
beincr  so  often  favored  with  that  kind  northern  visita- 
tion.  My  London  faces  and  noises  don't  hear  me  — 
I  mean  no  disrespect,  or  I  should  explain  myself,  that 
instead  of  their  return  220  times  a  year,  and  the  I'eturn 
of  W.  W.,  &c.,  seven  times  in  104  weeks,  some  more 
equal  distribution  might  be  found.  I  have  scarce  room 
to  put  in  Mary's  kind  love,  and  my  poor  name, 

"  C.  Lamb." 

"  S.  T.  C.  is  lecturing  with  success.  I  mean  to  hear 
some  of  the  course,  but  lectures  are  not  much  to  my 
taste,  whatever  the  lecturer  may  be.  If  read^  they  are 
dismal  flat,  and  you  can't  think  why  you  are  brought 
together  to  hear  a  man  read  his  works,  which  you 
could  read  so  much  better  at  leisure  yourself;  if  de- 


LETTER  TO  MBS.  WORDSWOKTH.  289 

livered  extempore,  I  am  always  in  pain,  lest  the  gift  of 
utterance  sliould  suddenly  fail  the  orator  in  the  middle, 
as  it  did  me  at  the  dinner  given  in  honor  of  me  at  the 
London  Tavern.  '  Gentlemen,'  said  I,  and  there  I 
stopped ;  the  rest  my  feelings  were  under  the  necessity 
of  supplying.  Mrs.  Wordsworth  will  go  on,  kindly 
haunting  us  with  visions  of  seeing  the  lakes  once  more, 
which  never  can  be  realized.  Between  us  there  is  a 
great  gulf,  not  of  inexplicable  moral  antipathies  and 
distances,  I  hope,  as  there  seemed  to  be  between  me 
and  that  gentleman  concerned  in  the  stamp  office,  that 
I  so  strangely  recoiled  from  at  Haydon's.  I  think  I 
had  an  instinct  that  he  was  the  head  of  an  office.  I 
hate  all  such  people — accountants'  deputy  accountants. 
The  dear  abstract  notion  of  the  East  India  Company, 
as  long  as  she  is  unseen,  is  pretty,  rather  poetical ;  but 
as  she  makes  herself  manifest  by  the  persons  of  such 
beasts,  I  loathe  and  detest  her  as  the  scarlet  what-do- 
you-call-her  of  Babylon.  I  thought,  after  abridging  us 
of  all  otu'  red-letter  days,  they  had  done  their  worst, 
but  I  was  deceived  in  the  length  to  which  heads  of 
offices,  those  true  liberty-haters,  can  go.  They  are  the 
tyrants,  not  Ferdinand,  nor  Nero  —  by  a  decree  passed 
this  week,  they  have  abridged  us  of  the  immemorially- 
observed  custom  of  going  at  one  o'clock  of  a  Saturday, 
the  httle  shadow  of  a  hohday  left  us.  Dear  W.  W. 
be  thankful  for  liberty." 

Among  Lamb's  new  acquaintances  was  Mr.  Charles 
Olher,  a  young  bookseller  of  considerable  literary  tal- 
ent, which  he  has  since  exhibited  in  the  original  and 
beautiful  tale  of  "  Inesilla,"  who  proposed  to  him  the 
pubhcation  of  his  scattered  writings  in  a  collected  form. 

VOL.  I.  19 


290  LETTER    TO   SOUTHEY. 

Lamb  acceded  ;  and  nearly  all  lie  had  then  written  in 
prose  and  verse,  were  published  this  year  by  Mr.  Oilier 
and  his  brother,  in  two  small  and  elegant  volumes. 
Early  copies  were  despatched  to  Southey  and  Words- 
worth ;  the  acknowledgments  of  the  former  of  whom 
produced  a  reply,  from  which  the  following  is  an  ex- 
tract :  — 

TO    MR.    SOUTHEY. 

"  Monday,  Oct.  26th,  1818. 

"  Dear  Southey,  —  I  am  pleased  with  your  friendly 
remembrances  of  my  little  things.  I  do  not  know 
whether  I  have  done  a  silly  thing,  or  a  wise  one,  but  it 
is  of  no  great  consequence.  I  run  no  risk,  and  care  for 
no  censures.  My  bread  and  cheese  is  stable  as  the  foun- 
dations of  Leadenhall  Street,  and  if  it  hold  out  as  long 
as  the  '  foundations  of  our  empire  in  the  East,'  I  shall 
do  pretty  well.  You  and  W.  W.  should  have  had 
your  presentation  copies  more  ceremoniously  sent,  but 
I  had  no  copies  when  I  was  leaving  town  for  my  holi- 
days, and  rather  than  delay,  commissioned  my  book- 
seller to  send  them  thus  nakedly.  By  not  hearing 
from  W.  W.  or  you,  I  began  to  be  afraid  Murray  had 
not  sent  them.  I  do  not  see  S.  T.  C  so  often  as  I 
could  wish.  I  am  better  than  I  deserve  to  be.  The  hot 
weather  has  been  such  a  treat !  Mary  joins  in  this  lit- 
tle comer  in  kindest  remembrances  to  you  all. 

C.  L." 

Lamb's  interest  was  strongly  excited  for  Mr.  Ken- 

ney,    on  the   production   of  his  comedy  entitled    "  A 

Word  to  the  Ladies.''''     Lamb  had  engaged  to  contribute 

the  prologue  ;  but  the  promise  pressed  hard  upon  him, 


LETTER    TO    COLERIDGE.  291 

and  lie  procured  the  requisite  quantity  of  verse  from  a 
very  inferior  hand.  Kenney,  who  had  married  Hol- 
croft's  widow,  had  more  than  succeeded  to  him  in 
Lamb's  regards.  Holcroft  had  considerable  dramatic 
skill ;  great  force  and  earnestness  of  style,  and  noble  sin- 
cerity and  uprightness  of  disposition  ;  but  he  was  an 
austere  observer  of  morals  and  manners ;  and  even  his 
grotesque  characters  were  hardly  and  painfully  sculp- 
tured ;  while  Kenney,  with  as  fine  a  perception  of  the 
ludicrous  and  the  peculiar,  was  more  airy,  more  indul- 
gent, more  graceful,  and  exliibited  more  frequent 
glimpses  of  "  the  gayest,  happiest  attitude  of  things." 
The  comedy  met  with  less  success  than  the  reputation 
of  the  author  and  brilliant  experience  of  the  past  had 
rendered  probable,  and  Lamb  had  to  perform  the  office 
of  comforter,  as  he  had  done  on  the  more  unlucky  event 
to  Godwin.  To  this  play  Lamb  refers  in  the  following 
note  to  Coleridge,  who  was  contemplating  a  course  of 
lectm-es  on  Shakspeare,  and  who  sent  Lamb  a  ticket, 
with  sad  forebodings  that  the  course  would  be  his  last. 


TO    MR.    COLERIDGE. 

"  Dec.  24th,  1818. 

"  My  dear  Coleridge,  —  I  have  been  in  a  state  of 
incessant  hurry  ever  since  the  receipt  of  your  ticket. 
It  found  me  incapable  of  attending  you,  it  being  the 
night  of  Kenney's  new  comedy.  You  know  my  local 
aptitudes  at  such  a  time  ;  I  have  been  a  thorough  ren- 
dezvous for  all  consultations ;  my  head  begins  to  clear 
up  a  little,  but  it  has  had  bells  in  it.  Thank  you  kindly 
for  your  ticket,  though  the  mournful  prognostic  which 
accompanies  it  certainly  renders  its  permanent  preten- 


292  LETTER   TO    WORDSWORTH. 

sions  less  marketable ;  but  I  trust  to  hear  many  a 
course  yet.  You  excepted  Christmas  week,  by  which 
I  understood  next  week ;  I  thought  Christmas  week 
was  that  which  Christmas  Sunday  ushered  in.  We  are 
sorry  it  never  lies  in  your  way  to  come  to  us  ;  but, 
dear  Mahomet,  we  will  come  to  you.  Will  it  be  con- 
venient to  all  the  good  people  at  Highgate,  if  we  take 
a  stage  up,  not  next  Sunday,  but  the  following,  viz., 
3d  January,  1819  —  shall  we  be  too  late  to  catch  a 
skirt  of  the  old  outgoer  ?  —  how  the  years  crumble 
from  under  us  !  We  shall  hope  to  see  you  before  then ; 
but  if  not,  let  us  know  if  then  will  be  convenient.  Can 
we  secure  a  coach  home  ? 

"  Believe  me  ever  yours,  C.  Lamb." 

"  I  haVe  but  one  holiday,  which  is  Christmas-day 
itself  nakedly :  no  pretty  garnish  and  fringes  of  St. 
John's-day,  Holy  Innocents,  &c.,  that  used  to  bestud 
it  all  around  in  the  calendar.  Improhe  labor  !  I  write 
six  hours  every  day  in  this  candlelight  fog-den  at 
Leadenhall." 

In  the  next  year  [1819]  Lamb  was  greatly  pleased 
by  the  dedication  to  him  of  Wordsworth's  poem  of 
"  The  Wagoner,"  which  Wordsworth  had  read  to 
him  in  MS.  thirteen  years  before.  On  receipt  of  the 
little  volume.  Lamb  acknowledged  it  as  follows  :  — 


TO  MR.  WORDSWORTH. 

"June  7th,  1819. 
"  My  dear  Wordsworth,  — You  cannot  imagine  how 
proud  we  are  here  of  the  dedication.    We  read  it  twice 


LETTER  TO   WORDSWORTH.  293 

for  once  that  we  do  the  poem.  I  mean  all  through  ; 
yet  '  Benjamin '  is  no  common  favorite  ;  there  is  a 
spirit  of  beautiful  tolerance  in  it ;  it  is  as  good  as  it 
was  in  1806  ;  and  it  will  be  as  good  in  1829,  if  our 
dim  eyes  shall  be  awake  to  peruse  it.  Methinks  there 
is  a  kind  of  shadowing  affinity  between  the  subject  of 
the  narrative  and  the  subject  of  the  dedication  ;  —  but 
I  will  not  enter  into  personal  themes,  else,  substituting 
***********  for  Ben,  and  the  Honorable  United 
Company  of  Merchants  trading  to  the  East  Indies,  for 
the  master  of  the  misused  team,  it  might  seem,  by  no 
far-fetched  analogy,  to  point  its  dim  warnings  hither- 
ward  ;  but  I  reject  the  omen,  especially  as  its  import 
seems  to  have  been  diverted  to  another  victim. 

"  I  will  never  write  another  letter  with  alternate 
inks.  You  cannot  imagine  how  it  cramps  the  flow  of 
the  style.  I  can  conceive,  Pindar  (I  do  not  mean  to 
compare  myself  to  him),  by  the  command  of  Hiero, 
the  Sicilian  tyrant  (was  not  he  the  tyrant  of  some 
place  ?  fie  on  my  neglect  of  history)  ;  I  can  conceive 
him  by  command  of  Hiero  or  Perillus  set  down  to  pen 
an  Isthmian  or  Nemean  panegyric  in  lines,  alternate 
red  and  black.  I  maintain  he  couldn't  have  done  it ; 
it  would  have  been  a  straitlaced  torture  to  his  muse  ; 
he  would  have  call'd  for  the  bull  for  a  relief.  Neither 
could  Lycidas,  or  the  Chorics  (how  do  you  like  the 
word  ?)  of  Samson  Agonistes,  have  been  written  with 
two  inks.  Your  couplets  with  points,  epilogues  to  Mr. 
H.'s,  &c.,  might  be  even  benefited  by  the  twy-fount, 
where  one  line  (the  second)  is  for  point,  and  the  first 
for  rhyme.  I  think  the  alternation  would  assist,  like  a 
mould.  I  maintain  it,  you  could  not  have  written  your 
stanzas  on  preexistence  with  two  inks.     Try  another ; 


294  LETTER    TO    WORDSWORTH. 

and  Rogers,  with  his  silver  standish,  having  one  ink 
only,  I  will  bet  my  '  Ode  on  Tobacco,'  against  the 
'  Pleasures  of  Memory,'  —  and  '  Hope,'  too,  shall  put 
more  fervor  of  enthusiasm  into  the  same  subject  than 
you  can  with  your  two  ;  he  shall  do  it  stans  pede  in 
uno,  as  it  were. 

"  The  '  Wagoner '  is  very  ill  put  up  in  boards,  at 
least  it  seems  to  me  always  to  open  at  the  dedication  ; 
but  that  is  a  mechanical  fault.  I  re-read  the  '  White 
Doe  of  Rylstone  ; '  the  title  should  be  always  written 

at  length,  as   Mary  Sabilla  N ,  a  very  nice  woman 

of  our  acquaintance,  always  signs  hers  at  the  bottom  of 
the   shortest  note.      Mary  told  her,  if  her  name  had 

been  Mary  Ann,  she  would  have  signed  M.  A.  N , 

or  M.  only,  dropping  the  A.  ;  which  makes  me  think, 
with  some  other  trifles,  that  she  understands  something 
of  human  nature.  My  pen  goes  galloping  on  most 
rhapsodically,  glad  to  have  escaped  the  bondage  of  two 
inks. 

"  Manning  had  just  sent  it  home,  and  it  came  as 
fresh  to  me  as  the  immortal  creature  it  speaks  of.  M. 
sent  it  home  with  a  note,  having  this  passage  in  it :  'I 
cannot  help  writing  to  you  while  I  am  reading  Words- 
worth's poem.  I  am  got  into  the  third  canto,  and  say 
that  it  raises  my  opinion  of  him  very  much  indeed.* 
^Tis  broad,  noble,  poetical,  with  a  masterly  scanning 
of  human  actions,  absolutely  above  common  readers. 
What  a  manly  (implied)  interpretation  of  (bad)  party- 
actions,  as  trampling  the  Bible,  &c.,'  and  so  he  goes  on. 

"  I  do  not  know  which  I  like  best,  —  the  prologue 

*  "N.B.  —  M.,  from  his  peregrinations,  is  twelve  or  fourteen  years 
behind  in  his  knowledge  of  who  has  or  has  not  written  good  verse  of 
late." 


LETTER  TO  MANNING.  295 

(the  latter  part  especially)  to  P.  Bell,  or  the  epilogue 
to  Benjamin.  Yes,  I  tell  stories  ;  I  do  know  I  like  the 
last  best ;  and  the  '  Wagoner '  altogether  is  a  pleas- 
anter  remembrance  to  me  than  the  '  Itinerant.'  If  it 
were  not,  the  page  before  the  first  page  would  and 
ought  to  make  it  so. 

"  If,  as  you  say,  the  '  Wagoner,'  in  some  sort,  came 
at  my  call,  oh  for  a  potent  voice  to  call  forth  the  '  Re- 
cluse '  from  his  profound  dormitory,  where  he  sleeps 
forgetful  of  his  foolish  charge  —  the  world. 

"  Had  I  three  inks,  I  would  invoke  him  !  Talfourd 
has  written  a  most  kind  review  of  '  J.  Woodvil,'  &c.,  in 
the  '  Champion.'  He  is  your  most  zealous  admirer,  in 
solitude  and  in  crowds.  H.  Crabb  Robinson  gives  me 
any  dear  prints  that  I  happen  to  admire,  and  I  love 
him  for  it  and  for  other  things.  Alsager  shall  have  his 
copy,  but  at  present  I  have  lent  it  for  a  day  only^  not 
choosing  to  part  with  my  own.  Mary's  love.  How  do 
you  all  do,  amanuenses  both  —  marital  and  sororal  ? 

"C  Lamb." 

The  next  letter  which  remains  is  addressed  to  Man- 
ning (retvu'ned  to  England,  and  domiciled  in  Hert- 
fordshire), in  the  spring  of  1819. 


TO    MR.   MANNING. 

"  My  dear  M.,  —  I  want  to  know  how  your  brother 
is,  if  you  have  heard  lately.  I  want  to  know  about 
you.  I  wish  you  were  nearer.  How  are  my  cousins, 
the  Gladmans  of  Wheathamstead,  and  farmer  B  niton  ? 
Mrs.  Bruton  is  a  glorious  woman. 

'  Hail,  Mackery  End  '  — 


296  LETTER   TO    MANNING. 

This  is  a  fragment  of  a  blank  verse  poem  which  I  once 
meditated,  but  got  no  ftu-ther.*  The  E.  I.  H.  has 
been  thrown  into  a  quandary  by  the  strange  phenome- 
non of  poor ,  whom  I  have  known  man  and 

mad-man  twenty-seven  years,  he  being  elder  here  than 
myself  by  nine  years  and  more.  He  was  always  a 
pleasant,  gossiping,  half-headed,  muzzy,  dozing,  dream- 
ing, walk-about,  inoffensive  chap ;  a  little  too  fond  of 

the  creature ;    who  isn't  at  times  ?    but had  not 

brains  to  work  off  an  over  night's  surfeit  by  ten  o'clock 
next  morning,  and  unfortunately,  in  he  wandered  the 
other  morning  drunk  with  last  night,  and  with  a  super- 
fetation  of  drink  taken  in  since  he  set  out  from  bed. 
He  came  staggering  under  his  double  burden,  like 
trees  in  Java,  bearing  at  once  blossom,  fruit,  and  falhng 
fruit,  as  I  have  heard  you  or  some  other  traveller  tell, 
with  his  face  literally  as  blue  as  the  bluest  firmament ; 
some  wretched  calico  that  he  had  mopped  his  poor  oozy 
front  with  had  rendered  up  its  native  dye,  and  the 
devil  a  bit  would  he  consent  to  wash  it,  but  swore  it 
was  characteristic,  for  he  was  going  to  the  sale  of  in- 
digo, and  set  up  a  laugh  which  I  did  not  think  the 
lungs  of  mortal  man  were  competent  to.  It  was  like 
a  thousand  people  laughing,  or  the  Goblin  Page.  He 
imagined  afterwards  that  the  whole  office  had  been 
laughing  at  him,  so  strange  did  his  own  sounds  strike 

upon  his  wojisensorium.      But has  laughed  his  last 

laugh,  and  awoke  the  next  day  to  find  himself  reduced 
from  an  abused  income  of  600?.  per  annum  to  one 
sixth  of  the  sum,  after  thirty-six  years'  tolerably  good 

*  See  "Mackery  End,  in  Hertfordshire,"  — /Assays  of  Elia,  p.  100?  — 
for  a  charming  account  of  a  visit  to  their  cousin  in  the  country  with. 
Mr.  Barron  Field. 


LETTER   TO  MANNING.  297 

service.  The  quality  of  mercy  was  not  strained  in  liis 
behalf ;  the  gentle  dews  dropt  not  on  him  from  heaven. 
It  just  came  across  me  that  I  was  writing  to  Canton. 
Will  you  drop  in  to-morrow  night  ?  Fanny  Kelly  is 
comincr,  if  she  does  not  cheat  us.  Mrs.  Gold  is  well, 
but  proves  '  uncoined,'  as  the  lovers  about  Wheatham- 
stead  would  say. 

"  I  have  not  had  such  a  quiet  half  hour  to  sit  down 
to  a  quiet  letter  for  many  years.  I  have  not  been  in- 
terrupted above  four  times.  I  wrote  a  letter  the  other 
day,  in  alternate  hues,  black  ink  and  red,  and  you  can- 
not think  how  it  chilled  the  flow  of  ideas.  Next  Mon- 
day is  Whit-Monday.  What  a  reflection  !  Twelve 
years  ago,  and  I  should  have  kept  that  and  the  follow- 
mg  holiday  in  the  fields  a  Maying.  All  of  those  pretty 
pastoral  delights  are  over.  This  dead,  everlasting  dead 
desk,  —  how  it  weighs  the  spirit  of  a  gentleman  down  ! 
This  dead  wood  of  the  desk,  instead  of  your  living 
trees !  But  then  again,  I  hate  the  Joskins,  a  name 
for  Hertfordshire  htmpkins.  Each  state  of  life  has  its 
inconvenience ;  but  then  again,  mine  has  more  than 
one.  Not  that  I  repine,  or  grudge,  or  murmur  at  my 
destiny.  I  have  meat  and  drink,  and  decent  apparel ; 
I  shall,  at  least,  when  I  get  a  new  hat. 

"  A  red-haired  man  just  interrupted  me.  He  has 
broke  the  current  of  my  thoughts.  I  haven't  a  word 
to  add.  I  don't  know  why  I  send  this  letter,  but  I 
have  had  a  hankering  to  hear  about  you  some  days. 
Perhaps  it  will  go  off  before  yom*  reply  comes.  If  it 
don't,  I  assure  you  no  letter  was  ever  welcomer  from 
you,  from  Paris  or  Macao. 

"  C.  Lamb." 


298  LETTER  TO  MISS   WORDSWORTH, 

The  following  letter,  dated  25tli  November,  1819, 
is  addressed  to  Miss  Wordsworth,  on  Wordsworth's 
youngest  son  visiting  Lamb  in  London. 


TO  MISS  WORDSWORTH. 
"  Dear  Miss  Wordsworth,  —  You  will  think  me 
negligent :  but  I  wanted  to  see  more  of  Willy  before 
I  ventured  to  express  a  prediction.  Till  yesterday  I 
had  barely  seen  him  —  Virgilium  tantum  vidi^  —  but 
yesterday  he  gave  us  his  small  company  to  a  bullock's 
heart,  and  I  can  pronounce  him  a  lad  of  promise.  He 
is  no  pedant,  nor  bookworm  ;  so  far  I  can  answer. 
Perhaps  he  has  hitherto  paid  too  httle  attention  to 
other  men's  inventions,  preferring,  like  Lord  Foppmg- 
ton,  the  '  natural  sprouts  of  his  own.'  But  he  has 
observation,  and  seems  thoroughly  awake.  I  am  ill 
at  remembering  other  people's  hon  mots,  but  the  follow- 
ing are  a  few  :  —  Being  taken  over  Waterloo  Bridge, 
he  remarked,  that  if  we  had  no  mountains,  we  had  a 
fine  river  at  least ;  which  was  a  touch  of  the  compar- 
ative :  but  then  he  added,  in  a  strain  which  augured 
less  for  his  future  abilities  as  a  political  economist,  that 
he  supposed  they  must  take  at  least  a  pound  a  week 
toll.  Like  a  curious  naturalist,  he  inquired  if  the  tide 
did  not  come  up  a  little  salty.  This  being  satisfactorily 
answered,  he  put  another  question,  as  to  the  flux  and 
reflux ;  which  being  rather  cunningly  evaded  than 
artfully  solved  by  that  she- Aristotle,  Mary,  —  who 
muttered  something  about  its  getting  up  an  hour 
sooner  and  sooner  every  day,  —  he  sagely  replied, 
'  Then  it  must  come  to  the  same  thing  at  last ; ' 
which  was  a  speech  worthy  of  an  infant  Halley  !     The 


LETTER  TO  MISS  WORDSWORTH.  299 

lion  in  the  'Change  by  no  means  came  up  to  his  ideal 
standard ;  so  impossible  is  it  for  Nature,  in  any  of  her 
works,  to  come  up  to  the  standard  of  a  child's  imagina- 
tion !     The  whelps  (lionets)  he  was  sorry  to  find  were 
dead  ;  and,   on  particular  inquiry,   his    old  friend  the 
orang-outang  had  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh  also.      The 
grand  tiger  was  also  sick,  and  expected  in  no  short  time 
to  exchange  this  transitory  world  for  another,  or  fione. 
But  again,  there  was  a  golden  eagle  (I  do  not  mean 
that  of  Charing)  which  did  much  arride  and  console 
him.     William's  genius,  I  take  it,  leans  a  little  to  the 
figurative  ;  for,  being  at  play  at  tricktrack  (a  kind  of 
mmor  billiard-table  which  we  keep  for  smaller  wights, 
and  sometimes  refresh  our  own  mature  fatigues  with 
taking  a  hand  at),  not  being  able  to  hit  a  ball  he  had 
iterate  aimed  at,  he  cried  out,  '  I  cannot  hit  that  beast.' 
Now  the  balls  are  usually  called  men,  but  he  felici- 
tously hit  upon  a  middle  term  ;  a  term  of  approximation 
and  imaginative  reconciliation  ;  a  something  where  the 
two  ends  of  the  brute  matter  (ivory),  and  their  human 
and  rather  violent  personification  into  men,  might  meet, 
as  I  take  it :  illustrative  of  that  excellent  remark,  in  a 
certam  preface  about  imagination,  explaining  '  Like  a 
sea-beast  that  had  crawled  forth  to  sun  himself ! '     Not 
that  I  accuse  William  Minor  of  hereditary  plagiary,  or 
conceive  the  image  to  have  come  ex  traduce.     Rather 
he  seemeth  to  keep  aloof  from  any  source  of  imitation, 
and  purposely  to  remain  ignorant  of  what  mighty  poets 
have  done  in  this  kind  before  him  ;  for,  being  asked  if 
his  father  had  ever  been  on  Westminster  Bridge,  he 
answered  that  he  did  not  know  ! 

"  It  is  hard  to  discern  the  oak  in  the  acorn,  or  a  tem- 
ple like  St.  Paul's  in  the  first  stone  which  is  laid  ;  nor 


300  LETTER  TO  MISS  WORDSWORTH. 

can  I  quite  prefigure  what  destination  the  genius  of 
WilHam  Minor  hath  to  take.  Some  few  hints  I  have 
set  down,  to  guide  my  future  observations.  He  hath 
the  power  of  calculation  in  no  ordinary  degree,  for  a 
chit.  He  combineth  figures,  after  the  first  boggle,  rap- 
idly ;  as  in  the  tricktrack  board,  where  the  liits  are 
figured,  at  first  he  did  not  perceive  that  15  and  7  made 
22,  but  by  a  little  use  he  could  combine  8  with  25,  and 
33  again  with  16,  which  approacheth  something  in 
kind  (far  let  me  be  from  flattering  him  by  saying  in 
degree)  to  that  of  the  famous  American  boy.  I  am 
sometimes  inclined  to  think  I  perceive  the  future  satir- 
ist m  him,  for  he  hath  a  subsardonic  smile  which  burst- 
eth  out  upon  occasion :  as  when  he  was  asked  if  London 
were  as  big  as  Ambleside ;  and  indeed  no  other  answer 
was  given,  or  proper  to  be  given,  to  so  ensnaring  and 
provoking  a  question.  In  the  contour  of  skull,  cer- 
tainly I  discern  something  paternal.  But  whether  in 
all  respects  the  future  man  shall  transcend  his  father's 
fame.  Time,  the  trier  of  Geniuses,  must  decide.  Be  it 
pronounced  peremptorily  at  present,  that  Willy  is  a  well- 
mannered  child,  and  though  no  great  student,  hath  yet 
a  lively  eye  for  things  that  lie  before  him. 

"  Given  in  haste  from  my  desk  at  Leadenhall. 
"  Yom's,  and  yom's  most  smcerely, 

"  C.  Lamb." 


BAEEY   CORNWALL.  301 

CHAPTER  XII. 

[1820  to  1823.] 

LETTERS    TO    WORDSWORTH,    COLERIDGE,   FIELD,  WILSON,  AND 

BARTON. 

The  widening  cii-cle  of  Lamb's  literary  friends  now 
embraced  additional  authors  and  actors,  —  famous,  or 
just  bursting  into  fame.  He  welcomed  in  the  author 
of  the  "  Dramatic  Scenes,"  who  chose  to  appear  in 
print  as  Barry  Cornwall,  a  spirit  most  congenial  with 
his  own  in  its  serious  moods,  —  one  whose  genius  he 
had  assisted  to  impel  towards  its  kindred  models,  the 
great  di-amatists  of  Elizabeth's  time,  and  in  whose  suc- 
cess he  received  the  first  and  begt  reward  of  the  efforts 
he  had  made  to  inspire  a  taste  for  these  old  masters  of 
humanity.  Mr.  Macready,  who  had  just  emancipated 
himself  fi'om  the  drudgery  of  representing  the  villains 
of  tragedy,  by  his  splendid  performance  of  Richard^ 
was  introduced  to  him  by  his  old  friend  Charles  Lloyd, 
who  had  visited  London  for  change  of  scene,  under 
great  depression  of  spirits.  Lloyd  owed  a  debt  of  grat- 
itude to  Macready  which  exempHfied  the  true  uses  of 
the  acted  drama  with  a  force  which  it  would  take  many 
sermons  of  its  stoutest  opponents  to  reason  away.  A 
deep  gloom  had  gradually  overcast  Ms  mind,  and  threat- 
ened wholly  to  encircle  it,  when  he  was  induced  to  look 
in  at  Co  vent-Garden  Theatre,  and  witness  the  perform- 
ance of  Roh  Roy.  The  picture  which  he  then  beheld 
of  the  generous  outlaw,  —  the  frank,  gallant,  noble 
bearing,  —  the  air  and  movements,  as  of  one  "free  of 
mountain   solitudes," — the   touches  of  manly   pathos 


302  BARRY   CORNWALL. 

and  irresistible  cordiality,  delighted  and  melted  him, 
won  him  from  his  painful  introspections,  and  brought 
to  him  the  unwonted  relief  of  tears.  He  went  home 
"  a  gayer  and  a  wiser  man  ; "  returned  again  to  the 
theatre,  whenever  the  healing  enjoyments  could  be 
renewed  there ;  and  sought  the  acquaintance  of  the 
actor  who  had  broken  the  melancholy  spell  in  which  he 
was  enthralled,  and  had  restored  the  pulses  of  his  nature 
to  their  healthful  beatings.  The  year  1820  gave  Lamb 
an  mterest  in  Macready  beyond  that  which  he  had  de- 
rived from  the  introduction  of  Lloyd,  arising  from  the 
power  with  which  he  animated  the  first  production  of 
one  of  his  oldest  friends  —  "  Virginius."  Knowles  had 
been  a  friend  and  disciple  of  Hazlitt  from  a  boy ;  and 
Lamb  had  liked  and  esteemed  him  as  a  hearty  compan- 
ion ;  but  he  had  not  guessed  at  the  extraordinary  dra- 
matic power  which  lay  i-eady  for  kindling  in  his  brain, 
and  still  less  at  the  delicacy  of  tact  with  which  he  had 
unveiled  the  sources  of  the  most  profound  affections. 
Lamb  had  almost  lost  his  taste  for  acted  tragedy,  as  the 
sad  reahties  of  life  had  pressed  more  nearly  on  him  ; 
yet  he  made  an  exception  in  favor  of  the  first  and  hap- 
piest part  of  "  Virginius,"  those  paternal  scenes,  which 
stand  alone  in  the  modern  drama,  and  which  Macready 
informed  with  the  fulness  of  a  father's  affection. 

The  estabhshment  of  the  "  London  Magazine,"  un- 
der the  auspices  of  Mr.  John  Scott,  occasioned  Lamb's 
introduction  to  the  public  by  the  name,  under  color 
of  which  he  acquired  his  most  brilliant  reputation  — 
"  Elia."  The  adoption  of  this  signature  was  purely 
accidental.  His  first  contribution  to  the  magazine  was 
a  description  of  the  Old  South-Sea  House,  where  Lamb 
had  passed  a  few  months'  novitiate  as  a  clerk,  thirty 


LETTER  TO  WORDSWORTH.  303 

years  before,  and  of  its  inmates  who  had  long  passed 
away ;  and  remembering  the  name  of  a  gay,  hght- 
hearted  foreigner,  who  fluttered  there  at  that  time,  he 
subscribed  his  name  to  the  essay.  It  was  afterwards 
affixed  to  subsequent  contributions ;  and  Lamb  used  it 
until,  in  his  "  Last  Essays  of  Elia,"  he  bade  it  a  sad 
farewelL 

The  perpetual  influx  of  visitors  whom  he  could  not 
repel ;  whom  indeed  he  was  always  glad  to  welcome, 
but  whose  visits  unstrung  him,  induced  him  to  take 
lodgings  at  Dalston,  to  which  he  occasionally  retired 
when  he  wished  for  repose.  The  deaths  of  some  who 
were  dear  to  him  cast  a  melancholy  tinge  on  his  mind, 
as  may  be  seen  in  the  following :  — 


TO  ME.  WORDSWORTH. 

"  March  20th,  1822. 

"  My  dear  Wordsworth,  —  A  letter  from  you  is  very 
grateful ;  I  have  not  seen  a  Kendal  postmark  so  long  ! 
We  are  pretty  well,  save  colds  and  rheumatics,  and  a 
certain  deadness  to  everything,  which  I  think  I  may 
date  from  poor  John's  loss,  and  another  accident  or  two 
at  the  same  time,  that  has  made  me  almost  bury  myself 
at  Dalston,  where  yet  I  see  more  faces  than  I  could 
wish.  Deaths  overset  one,  and  put  one  out  long  after 
the  recent  grief.  Two  or  three  have  died  within  this 
last  two  twelvemonths,  and  so  many  parts  of  me  have 
been  numbed.  One  sees  a  picture,  reads  an  anecdote, 
starts  a  casual  fancy,  and  thinks  to  tell  of  it  to  this 
person  in  preference  to  every  other :  the  person  is  gone 
whom  it  would  have  peculiarly  suited.  It  won't  do  for 
another.     Every  departure  destroys  a  class  of  sympa- 


304  LETTER  TO  WORDSWORTH, 

thies.  There's  Capt.  Burney  gone  !  What  fun  has  whist 
noAV  ?  what  matters  it  what  you  lead,  if  you  can  no 
longer  fancy  him  looking  over  you  ?  One  never  hears 
anything,  but  the  image  of  the  particular  person  occurs 
with  whom  alone  almost  you  would  care  to  share  the 
intelligence  —  thus  one  distributes  oneself  about  —  and 
now  for  so  many  parts  of  me  I  have  lost  the  market. 
Common  natures  do  not  suffice  me.  Good  people,  as 
they  are  called,  won't  serve.  I  want  individuals.  I 
am  made  up  of  queer  points,  and  I  want  so  many 
answering  needles.  The  going  away  of  friends  does 
not  make  the  remainder  more  precious.  It  takes  so 
much  from  them  as  there  was  a  common  link.  A.,  B,, 
and  C,  make  a  party.  A.  dies.  B.  not  only  loses  A. ; 
but  all  A.'s  part  in  C.  C.  loses  A.'s  part  in  B.,  and  so 
the  alphabet  sickens  by  subtraction  of  interchangeables. 
I  express  myself  muddily,  capite  dolente.  I  have  a 
dulling  cold.  My  theory  is  to  enjoy  life,  but  my  prac- 
tice is  against  it.  I  grow  ominously  tired  of  official 
confinement.  Thirty  years  have  I  served  the  Philis- 
tines, and  my  neck  is  not  subdued  to  the  yoke.  You 
don't  know  how  wearisome  it  is  to  breathe  the  air  of 
four  pent  walls,  without  relief,  day  after  day,  all  the 
golden  hours  of  the  day  between  ten  and  four,  without 
ease  or  interposition.  Tcedet  me  harum  quotidianarum 
formarum,  these  pestilential  clerk-faces  always  in  one's 
dish.  Oh  for  a  few  years  between  the  grave  and  the 
desk !  they  are  the  same,  save  that  at  the  latter  you 

are  the  outside   machine.     The   foul   enchanter , 

'  letters  four  do  form  his  name '  —  Busirare  is  his  name 
in  hell  —  that  has  curtailed  you  of  some  domestic  com- 
forts, hath  laid  a  heavier  hand  on  me,  not  in  present 
infliction,  but  in  the  taking  away  the  hope  of  enfran- 


LETTER  TO  WORDSWORTH.  305 

chisement.  I  dare  not  whisper  to  myself  a  pension  on 
this  side  of  absolute  incapacitation  and  infirmity,  till 
years  have  sucked  me  dry  ;  —  Otium  cum  indignitate. 
I  had  thought  in  a  green  old  age  (Oh  green  thought !) 
to  have  retired  to  Ponder's  End,  emblematic  name, 
how  beautiful !  in  the  Ware  Road,  there  to  have  made 
up  my  accounts  with  Heaven  and  the  Company,  tod- 
dling about  between  it  and  Cheshunt,  anon  stretching, 
on  some  fine  Isaac  Walton  morning,  to  Hoddesdon  or 
Am  well,  careless  as  a  beggar ;  but  walking,  walking 
ever  till  I  fairly  walked  myself  off  my  legs,  dying  walk- 
ing !  The  hope  is  gone.  I  sit  like  Philomel  all  day 
(but  not  singing),  with  my  breast  against  this  thorn  of 
a  desk,  with  the  only  hope  that  some  pulmonary  afflic- 
tion may  relieve  me.  Vide  Lord  Palmerston's  report 
of  the  clerks  in  the  War-office,  (Debates  this  morning's 
'  Times,')  by  which  it  appears,  in  twenty  years  as  many 
clerks  have  been  coughed  and  catarrhed  out  of  it  into 
their  freer  graves.  Thank  you  for  asking  about  the 
pictures.  Milton  hangs  over  my  fireside  in  Covent 
Garden,  (when  I  am  there,)  the  rest  have  been  sold 
for  an  old  song,  wanting  the  eloquent  tongue  that 
should  have  set  them  off  I  You  have  gratified  me  with 
liking  my  meeting  Avith  Dodd.*  For  the  Malvolio 
story  —  the  thing  is  become  in  verity  a  sad  task,  and  I 
eke  it  out  with  anything.  If  I  could  slip  out  of  it  I 
should  be  happy,  but  our  chief-reputed  assistants  have 
forsaken  us.  The  Opium-Eater  crossed  us  once  with  a 
dazzling  path,  and  hath  as  suddenly  left  us  darkling ; 
and,  in  sliort,  I  shall  go  on  from  dull  to  worse,  because 
I  cannot  resist  the  bookseller's  importunity  —  the  old 

*  See  the  account  of  the  meeting  between  Dodd  and  Jem  White,  in 
Elia's  Essay,  "  On  some  of  the  Old  Actors." 
VOL.  I.  20 


306  LETTER  TO   COLERIDGE. 

plea  you  know  of  authors,  but  I  believe  on  my  part 
sincere.  Hartley  I  do  not  so  often  see ;  but  I  never 
see  him  in  unwelcome  hour.  I  thoroughly  love  and 
honor  him.  I  send  you  a  frozen  epistle,  but  it  is  win- 
ter and  dead  time  of  the  year  with  me.  May  Heaven 
keep  something  like  spring  and  summer  up  with  you, 
strengthen  your  eyes,  and  make  mine  a  little  lighter  to 
encounter  with  them,  as  I  hope  they  shall  yet  and 
again,  before  all  are  closed. 

"  Yours,  with  every  kind  remembrance. 

"C.  L." 

"  I  had  almost  forgot  to  say,  I  think  you  thoroughly 
right  about  presentation  copies.  I  should  like  to  see 
you  print  a  book  I  should  grudge  to  purchase  for  its 
size.     Hang  me,  but  I  would  have  it  though  !  " 

The  following  letter,  containing  the  germ  of  the 
well-known  "  Dissertation  on  Roast  Pig,"  was  addressed 
to  Coleridge,  who  had  received  a  pig  as  a  present,  and 
attributed  it  erroneously  to  Lamb. 


TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"Dear  C, —  It  gives  me  great  satisfaction  to  hear 
that  the  pig  turned  out  so  well  —  they  are  interesting 
creatures  at  a  certain  age  —  what  a  pity  such  buds 
should  blow  out  into  the  maturity  of  rank  bacon  !  You 
had  all  some  of  the  crackling  —  and  brain  sauce  —  did 
you  remember  to  rub  it  with  butter,  and  gently  dredge 
it  a  little,  just  before  the  crisis  ?  Did  the  eyes  come 
away  kindly  with  no  (Edipean  avulsion?  Was  the 
crackling  the  color  of  the   ripe   pomegranate  ?     Had 


LETTER  TO  COLERIDGE.  307 

you  no  cursed  complement  of  boiled  neck  of  mutton 
before  it,  to  blunt  the  edge  of  delicate  desire  ?  Did 
you  flesh  maiden  teeth  in  it  ?     Not  that  I  sent  the  pig, 

or  can  form  the  remotest  guess  what  part  O could 

play  in  the  business.    I  never  knew  him  give  any  thing 
away  in  my  life.     He  would  not  begin  with  strangers. 
I  suspect  the  pig,  after  all,  was  meant  for  me ;  but  at 
the  unlucky  juncture  of  time  being  absent,  the  present 
somehow  went   round   to    Highgate.     To    confess   an 
honest  trufh,  a  pig  is  one  of  those  things  I  could  never 
think  of  sending  away.     Teals,  widgeons,  snipes,  barn- 
door fowl,  ducks,  geese  —  your  tame  villatic  things  — 
"Welsh    mutton,   collars    of  brawn,  sturgeon,  fresh    or 
pickled,  your  potted  char,  Swiss  cheeses,  French  pies, 
early  grapes,  muscadines,  I  impart  as  freely  unto  my 
friends  as  to  myself.     They  are  but*  self-extended ;  but 
pardon  me  if  I  stop  somewhere — where  the  fine  feel- 
ing of  benevolence   giveth  a  higher  smack  than  the 
sensual  rarity,  there  my  friends  (or  any  good  man) 
may  command  me ;  but  pigs   are  pigs,  and  I  myself 
therein  am  nearest  to  myself.     Nay,  I  should  think  it 
an  affront,  an  undervaluing  done  to  Nature   who  be- 
stowed such  a  boon  upon  me,  if  in  a  churlish  mood  I 
parted  with  the  precious  gift.     One    of   the  bitterest 
pangs  I  ever  felt  of  remorse  was  when  a  child — my 
kind  old  aunt  had  strained  her  pocket-strings  to  bestow 
a  six-penny  whole  plum-cake  upon  me.     In  my  way 
home  through    the   Borough,  I  met   a  venerable   old 
man,  not  a  mendicant — but  thereabouts  ;  a  look-beg- 
gar, not  a  verbal  petitionist ;  and  in  the  coxcombxy  of 
taught  charity,  I  gave  away  the  cake  to  him.    I  walked 
on  a  little  in  all  the  pride  of  an  Evangelical  peacock, 
when  of  a  sudden  my  old  aunt's  kindness  crossed  me  ; 


308  LETTER  TO  FIELD. 

the  sum  it  was  to  her  ;  the  pleasure  she  had  a  right  to 
expect  that  I  —  not  the  old  impostor  —  should  take  in 
eating  her  cake  ;  the  cursed  ingratitude  by  which,  un- 
der the  color  of  a  Christian  virtue,  I  had  frustrated  her 
cherished  purpose.  I  sobbed,  wept,  and  took  it  to  heart 
so  grievously,  that  I  think  I  never  suffered  the  like  — 
and  I  was  right.  It  was  a  piece  of  unfeeling  hypocrisy, 
and  proved  a  lesson  to  me  ever  after.  The  cake  has 
long  been  masticated,  consigned  to  dunghill  with  the 
ashes  of  that  unseasonable  pauper.  * 

"  But  when  Providence,  who  is  better  to  us  all  than 
our  aunts,  gives  me  a  pig,  remembei'ing  my  temptation 
and  my  fall,  I  shall  endeavor  to  act  towards  it  more  in 
the  spirit  of  the  donor's  purpose. 

"  Yours  (short  of  pig)  to  command  in  everything. 

"C.  L." 

In  the  summer  of  1822  Lamb  and  his  sister  visited 
Paris.  The  following  is  a  hasty  letter  addressed  to 
Field  on  his  return. 


TO  MR.  BARRON  FIELD. 

"  My  dear  F., —  I  scribble  hastily  at  office.  Frank 
wants  my  letter  presently.  I  and  sister  are  just  re- 
turned from  Paris  !  !  We  have  eaten  frogs.  It  has 
been  such  a  treat !  You  know  our  monotonous  tenor. 
Frogs  are  the  nicest  httle  delicate  things  —  rabbity- 
flavored.  Imagine  a  Lilliputian  rabbit !  They  fricassee 
them  ;  but  in  my  mind,  drest,  seethed,  plain,  with  pars- 
ley and  butter,  would  have  been  the  decision  of  Apicius. 
Paris  is  a  glorious  picturesque  old  city.  London  looks 
mean  and  new  to  it,  as  the  town  of  Washington  would, 


LETTER  TO  FIELD.  309 

seen  after  it.  But  they  have  no  St.  Paul's,  or  West- 
minster Abbey.  The  Seine,  so  much  despised  by  Cock- 
neys, is  exactly  the  size  to  run  through  a  magnificent 
street ;  palaces  a  mile  long  on  one  side,  lofty  Edinbro' 
stone  houses  (O  the  glorious  antiques !)  on  the  other. 
The  Thames  disimites  London  and  Southwark.  I  had 
Talma  to  supper  with  me.  He  has  picked  up,  as  I  be- 
lieve, an  authentic  portrait  of  Shakspeare.  He  paid  a 
broker  about  40L  English  for  it.  It  is  painted  on  the 
one  half  of  a  pair  of  bellows  —  a  lovely  picture,  corres- 
ponding with  the  folio-head.  The  bellows  has  old 
carved  wings  round  it,  and  round  the  visnomy  is  in- 
scribed, as  near  as  I  remember,  not  divided  into  rhyme 
—  I  found  out  the  rhyme  — 

Whom  have  we  here, 
Stuck  on  this  bellows,        • 
But  the  Prince  of  good  fellows, 
Willy  Shakspeare? 

At  top 

0  base  and  coward  luck ! 
To  be  here  stuck.  —  Poins. 

At  bottom  — 

Nay !  rather  a  glorious  lot  is  to  him  assign'd, 
Who,  like  the  Almighty,  rides  upon  the  wind. 

Pistol. 

"  This  is  all  in  old  carved  wooden  letters.  The 
countenance  smiling,  sweet,  and  intellectual  beyond 
measure,  even  as  he  was  immeasurable.  It  may  be  a 
forgery.  They  laugh  at  me  and  tell  me,  Ireland  is 
in  Paris,  and  has  been  putting  off  a  portrait  of  the 
Black  Prince.  How  far  old  wood  may  be  imitated,  I 
cannot  say.  Ireland  was  not  found  out  by  his  parch- 
ments, but  by  his  poetry.     I  am  confident  no  painter 


310  LETTER  TO  FIELD. 

on  either  side  the  Channel  could  have  painted  any  thing 
near  like  the  face  I  saw.  Again,  would  such  a  painter 
and  forger  have  taken  40Z.  for  a  thing,  if  authentic, 
worth  4,000/.  ?  Talma  is  not  in  the  secret,  for  he  had 
not  even  found  out  the  rhymes  in  the  first  inscription. 
He  is  coming  over  with  it,  and,  my  life  to  Southey's 
Thalaba,  it  will  gain  universal  faith. 

"  The  letter  is  wanted,  and  I  am  wanted.  Imagine 
the  blank  filled  up  with  all  kind  things. 

"  Our  joint  hearty  remembrances  to  both  of  you. 
Yours,  as  ever,  "  C.  Lamb." 

Soon  after  Lamb's  return  from  Paris  he  became 
acquainted  with  the  poet  of  the  Quakers,  Bernard  Bar- 
ton, who,  like  himself,  was  engaged  in  the  drudgery 
of  figures.  The  pjire  and  gentle  tone  of  the  poems  of 
his  new  acquaintance  Avas  welcome  to  Lamb,  who  had 
more  sympathy  with  the  truth  of  nature  in  modest 
guise  than  in  the  affected  ftiry  of  Lord  Byron,  or  the 
dreamy  extravagances  of  Shelley.  Lamb  had  written 
in  "  Elia  "  of  the  Society  of  Friends  with  the  freedom 
of  one,  who,  with  great  respect  for  the  principles  of 
the  founders  of  their  faith,  had  httle  in  common  with 
a  sect  who  shunned  the  pleasures,  while  they  mingled 
in  the  business  of  the  world  ;  and  a  friendly  expostula- 
tion on  the  part  of  Mr.  Barton,  led  to  such  cordial 
excuses  as  completely  won  the  heart  of  the  Quaker 
bard.  Some  expression  which  Lamb  sit  fall  at  their 
meeting  in  London,  from  which  Mr.  Barton  had  sup- 
posed tliat  Lamb  objected  to  a  Quaker's  writing  poetry 
as  inconsistent  with  his  creed,  induced  Mr.  Barton  to 
write  to  Lamb  on  his  return  to  Woodbridge,  who  re- 
plied as  follows  :  — 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  311 

TO  BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  India  House,  11th  Sept.,  1822. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  You  have  misapprehended  me  sadly, 
if  you  suppose  that  I  meant  to  impute  any  inconsis- 
tency in  your  writing  poetry  with  your  religious  pro- 
fession. I  do  not  remember  what  I  said,  but  it  was 
spoken  sportively,  I  am  sure  —  one  of  my  levities,  which 
you  are  not  so  used  to  as  my  older  friends.  I  probably 
was  thinking  of  the  light  in  which  your  so  indulging 
yourself  would  appear  to  Quakers,  and  put  their  objec- 
tion in  my  own  foolish  mouth.  I  would  eat  my  words 
(provided  they  should  be  written  on  not  very  coarse 
paper)  rather  than  I  would  throw  cold  water  upon 
your,  and  my  once,  harmless  occupation. 

"  I  have  read  Napoleon  and  th^  rest  with  delight.  I 
like  them  for  what  they  are,  and  for  what  they  are  not. 
I  have  sickened  on  the  modern  rhodomontade  and  By- 
ronism,  and  your  plain  Quakerish  beauty  has  captivated 
me.  It  is  all  wholesome  cates,  aye,  and  toothsome  too, 
and  withal  Quakerish.  If  I  were  George  Fox,  and 
George  Fox  licenser  of  the  press,  they  should  have 
my  absolute  imprimatur.  I  hope  I  have  removed  the 
impression. 

"  I  am,  like  you,  a  prisoner  to  the  desk.  I  have 
been  chained  to  that  galley  thirty  years,  a  long  shot. 
I  have  almost  grown  to  the  wood.  If  no  imaginative 
poet,  I  am  sure  I  am  a  figurative  one.  Do  '  Friends ' 
allow  puns  ?  verbal  equivocations  ?  —  they  are  unjustly 
accused  of  it,  and  I  did  my  little  best  in  the  '  Imperfect 
Sympathies '  to  vindicate  them.  I  am  very  tired  of 
clerking  it,  but  have  no  remedy.  Did  you  see  a  Sonnet 
to  this  purpose  in  the  Examiner  ?  — 


312  LETTERS   TO  BARTON. 

'  Who  first  invented  work,  and  bound  the  free 
And  holy-day  rejoicing  spirit  down 
To  the  ever-haunting  importunity 
Of  business,  in  the  green  fields  and  the  town, 
To  plough,  loom,  anvil,  spade ;  and  oh,  most  sad, 
To  that  dry  drudgery  at  the  desk's  dead  wood? 
Who  but  the  being  unblest,  alien  from  good, 
Sabbathless  Satan !  he  who  his  unglad 
Task  ever  plies,  'mid  rotatory  burnings, 
That  round  and  round  incalculably  reel ; 
For  wrath  Divine  hath  made  him  like  a  wheel  , 

In  that  red  realm  from  which  are  no  returnings; 
Where,  toiling  and  turmoiling,  ever  and  aye, 
He  and  his  thoughts  keep  pensive  working-day.' 

"  I  fancy  the  sentiment  expressed  above  will  be  nearly 
your  own.  The  expression  of  it,  probably,  would  not 
so  well  suit  with  a  follower  of  John  Woolman.  But  I 
do  not  know  whether  diabolism  is  a  part  of  your  creed, 
or  where,  indeed,  to  find  an  exposition  of  your  creed  at 
all.  In  feelings  and  matters  not  dogmatical,  I  hope  I 
am  half  a  Quaker.  Believe  me,  with  great  respect, 
yoiirs,  C.  Lamb." 


i( 


I  shall  always  be  happy  to  see  or  hear  from  you." 


Encouraged  by  Lamb's  kindness,  Mr.  Barton  con- 
tinued the  correspondence,  which  became  the  most 
frequent  in  which  Lamb  had  engaged  for  many  years. 
The  following  letter  is  in  acknowledgment  of  a  publi- 
cation of  Mr.  Barton's,  chiefly  directed  to  oppose  the 
theories  and  tastes  of  Lord  Byron  and  liis  friends :  — 


TO  BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  East-India  House,  9th  Oct.,  1822. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  I  am  ashamed   not   sooner  to  have 
acknowledged  your  letter  and  poem.     I  think  the  lat- 


LETTERS   TO   BARTON.  813 

ter  very  temperate,  very  serious,  and  very  seasonable. 
I  do  not  think  it  will  convert  the  club  at  Pisa,  neither 
do  I  think  it  will  satisfy  the  bigots  on  our  side  the 
water.  Something  like  a  parody  on  the  song  of  Ariel 
would  please  them  better :  — 

'  Full  fathom  five  the  Atheist  lies, 
Of  his  bones  are  hell-dice  made.' 

"  I  want  time,  or  fancy,  to  fill  up  the  rest.  I  sin- 
cerely sympathize  with  you  on  your  doleful  confine- 
ment. Of  time,  health,  and  riches,  the  first  in  order 
is  not  last  m  excellence.  Riches  are  chiefly  good  be- 
cause they  give  us  Time.  What  a  weight  of  wearisome 
prison-hours  have  I  to  look  back  and  forward  to,  as 
quite  cut  out  of  life  !  and  the  sting  of  the  thing  is,  that 
for  six  hooH-s  every  day  I  have  no  business  which  I 
could  not  contract  into  two,  if  they  would  let  me  work 
task-work.  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear  that  your  grievance 
is  mitigated. 

"  I  am  returning  a  poor  letter.  I  was  formerly  a 
great  scribbler  in  that  way,  but  my  hand  is  out  of  order. 
If  I  said  my  head  too,  I  should  not  be  very  much  out, 
but  I  will  tell  no  tales  of  myself ;  I  will  therefore  end 
(after  my  best  thanks,  with  a  hope  to  see  you  again 
some  time  in  London),  begging  you  to  accept  this  let- 
teret  for  a  letter  —  a  leveret  makes  a  better  present 
than  a  grown  hare,  and  short  troubles  (as  the  old 
excuse  goes)  are  best. 

"  I  remain,  dear  sir,  yours  truly, 

"  C.  Lamb." 

The  next  letter  will  speak  for  itself. 


314  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  Dec.  23rd,  1822. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  I  have  been  so  distracted  with  busi- 
ness and  one  thing  or  otlier,  I  have  not  had  a  quiet 
quarter  of  an  hour  for  epistolary  purposes.  Christ- 
mas, too,  is  come,  which  always  puts  a  rattle  into  my 
morning  skull.  It  is  a  visiting,  unquiet,  unquakerish 
season.  I  get  more  and  more  in  love  with  solitude,  and 
proportionately  hampered  with  company.  I  hope  you 
have  some  holidays  at  this  period.  I  have  one  day  — 
Christmas-day  ;  alas  !  too  few  to  commemorate  the  sea- 
son. All  work  and  no  play  dulls  me.  Company  is 
not  play,  but  many  times  hard  work.  To  play,  is  for  a 
man  to  do  what  he  please,  or  to  do  nothing — to  go 
about  soothing  his  particular  fancies.  I  have  lived  to  a 
time  of  life  to  have  outlived  the  good  hours,  the  nine 
o'clock  suppers,  with  a  bright  hour  or  two  to  clear  up 
in  afterwards.  Now  you  cannot  get  tea  before  that 
hour,  and  then  sit  gaping,  music-bothered  perhaps,  till 
half-past  twelve  brings  up  the  tray  ;  and  what  you  steal 
of  convivial  enjoyment  after,  is  heavily  paid  for  in  the 
disquiet  of  to-morrow's  head. 

"  I  am  pleased  with  your  liking  '  John  Woodvil,' 
and  amused  with  your  knowledge  of  our  drama  being 
confined  to  Shakspeare  and  Miss  Baillie.  What  a 
world  of  fine  territory  between  Land's  End  and 
Johnny  Groat's  have  you  missed  traversing  !  I  could 
almost  envy  you  to  have  so  much  to  read.  I  feel  as  if 
I  had  read  all  the  books  I  want  to  read.  O  to  forget 
Fielding,  Steele,  &c.,  and  read  'em  new  ! 

"  Can  you  tell  me  a  likely  place  where  I  could  pick 


LETTERS   TO   BARTON.  315 

up,  cheap,  Fox's  Journal  ?     There  are  no  Quaker  cir- 
culating  libraries?      Ehvood,    too,    I   must   have.      I 

rather  grudge  that  S y  has  taken  up  the  history  of 

your  people  :  I  am  afraid  he  will  put  in  some  levity. 
I  am  afraid  I  am  not  quite  exempt  from  that  fault  in 
certain  magazine  articles,  where  I  have  introduced 
mention  of  them.  Were  they  to  do  again,  I  would 
reform  them.  Why  should  not  you  write  a  poetical 
account  of  yom'  old  worthies,  deducing  them  from  Fox 
to  Woolman  ?  but  I  remember  you  did  talk  of  some- 
thing of  that  kind,  as  a  counterpart  to  the  '  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Sketches.'  But  would  not  a  poem  be  more  consec- 
utive than  a  string  of  sonnets  ?  You  have  no  martyrs 
quite  to  the  fire^  I  think,  among  you  ;  but  plenty  of 
heroic  confessors,  spirit-martyrs,  lamb-lions.  Think  of 
it ;  it  would  be  better  than  a  series  of  sonnets  on 
'  Eminent  Bankers.'  I  like  a  hit  at  our  way  of  life, 
though  it  does  well  for  me,  better  than  anything  short 
of  all  one's  time  to  one's  self ;  for  which  alone  I  rankle 
with  envy  at  the  rich.  Books  ai-e  good,  and  pictures 
are  good,  and  money  to  buy  them  therefore  good,  but 
to  buy  time  !  in  other  words,  life  ! 

"  The  '  compliments  of  the  time  '  to  you,  should  end 
my  letter ;  to  a  Friend,  I  suppose,  I  must  say  the  '  sin- 
cerity of  the  season  ; '  I  hope  they  both  mean  the  same. 
With  excuses  for  this  hastily-penned  note,  believe  me, 
with  great  respect,  C.  Lamb." 

In  this  winter  Mr.  Walter  Wilson,  one  of  the  friends 
of  Lamb's  youth,  applied  to  him  for  information  re- 
specting De  Foe,  whose  life  he  was  about  to  write. 
The  renewal  of  the  acquaintance  was  very  pleasant  to 
Lamb  ;    who  many  years  before    used    to  take    daily 


316  LETTER   TO   WILSON. 

walks  with  Wilson,  and  to  call  him  "  brother."     The 
following  is  Lamb's  reply  :  — 


TO   im.  WALTER   WILSON. 

"E.  1.  H.,  16th  December,  1822. 

"  Dear  Wilson,  —  Lightning,  I  was  going  to  call 
you.  You  must  have  thought  me  negligent  in  not 
answering  your  letter  sooner.  But  I  have  a  habit  of 
never  writing  letters  but  at  the  office  ;  'tis  so  much 
time  cribbed  out  of  the  Company  ;  and  I  am  but  jast 
got  out  of  the  thick  of  a  tea-sale,  in  which  most  of 
the  entry  of  notes,  deposits,  &c.,  usually  falls  to  my 
share. 

"  I  have  nothing  of  De  Foe's  but  two  or  three 
novels,  and  the  '  Plague  History.'  I  can  give  you  no 
information  about  him.  As  a  slight  general  character 
of  what  I  remember  of  them  (for  I  have  not  looked 
into  them  latterly)  I  would  say  that  in  the  appearance 
of  truth,  m  all  the  incidents  and  conversations  that 
occur  in  them,  they  exceed  any  works  of  fiction  I  am 
acquainted  with.  It  is  perfect  illusion.  The  author 
never  appears  in  these  self-narratives  (for  so  they  ought 
to  be  called,  or  rather  auto-biographies),  but  the  nar- 
rator chains  us  down  to  an  implicit  belief  in  everything 
he  says.  There  is  all  the  minute  detail  of  a  log-book 
in  it.  Dates  are  painfully  pressed  upon  the  memory. 
Facts  are  repeated  over  and  over  in  varying  phrases, 
till  you  cannot  choose  but  believe  them.  It  is  like 
reading  evidence  given  in  a  court  of  justice.  So  anx- 
ious the  story-teller  seems  that  the  truth  should  be 
clearly  comprehended,  that  when  he  has  told  us  a  mat- 
ter-of-fact, or  a  motive,  in  a  Hne  or  two  farther  down 


LETTER   TO   "\MLSOX.  317 

he  repeats  it,  with  his  favorite  figvire  of  speech,  '  I  say,' 
so  and  so,  though  he  had  made  it  abundantly  plain  be- 
fore. This  is  in  imitation  of  the  common  people's 
way  of  speaking,  or  rather  of  the  way  in  which  they 
are  addi'essed  bv  a  master  or  mistress,  who  wishes  to 
impress  something  upon  their  memories,  and  has  a  won- 
derful effect  upon  matter-of-fact  readers.  Indeed,  it  is 
to  such  principally  that  he  writes.  His  style  is  every- 
where beautiful,  but  plain  and  homely.  Robinson  Crusoe 
is  delightful  to  all  ranks  and  classes,  but  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  it  is  written  in  phraseology  peculiarly  adapted 
to  the  lower  conditions  of  readers ;  hence  it  is  an  es- 
pecial favorite  with  seafaring  men,  poor  boys,  servant- 
maids,  &c.  His  novels  are  capital  kitchen-reading, 
while  they  are  worthy,  from  their  deep  interest,  to  find 
a  shelf  in  the  Hbraries  of  the  wealthiest,  and  the  most 
learned.  His  passion  for  matter-of-fact  narrative  some- 
times betrayed  him  into  a  long  relation  of  common 
incidents,  which  might  happen  to  any  man,  and  have 
no  interest  but  the  intense  appearance  of  truth  in  them, 
to  recommend  them.  The  whole  latter  half  or  two 
thirds  of  '  Colonel  Jack  '  is  of  this  description.  The 
beginning  of  '  Colonel  Jack '  is  the  most  affecting 
natural  picture  of  a  yotmg  thief  that  was  ever  drawn. 
His  losino;  the  stolen  money  in  the  hollow  of  a  tree, 
and  finding  it  again  when  he  was  in  despair,  and  then 
being  in  equal  distress  at  not  knowing  how  to  dispose 
of  it,  and  several  similar  touches  in  the  early  history  of 
the  Colonel,  eA^ince  a  deep  knowledge  of  hmnan  na- 
ture ;  and  putting  out  of  question  the  superior  roman- 
tic interest  of  the  latter,  in  mv  mind  very  much  exceed 
Crusoe.  '  Roxana  '  (first  edition)  is  the  next  in  inter- 
est, though  he  left  out  the  best  part  of  it  in  subsequent 


318  LETTER  TO  WILSON. 

editions  from  a  foolish  liypercriticism  of  his  friend 
Southerne.  But  '  Moll  Flanders,'  the  '  Account  of  the 
Plague,'  &c.,  are  all  of  one  family,  and  have  the  same 
stamp  of  character.  BeHeve  me,  with  friendly  recol- 
lections. Brother  (as  I  used  to  call  you), 

"  Yours,  C.  Lamb." 

How  bitterly  Lamb  felt  his  East  India  bondage,  has 
abundantly  appeared  from  his  letters  during  many  years. 
Yet  there  never  was  wanting  a  secret  consciousness  of 
the  benefits  which  it  insured  for  him,  the  precious  inde- 
pendence which  he  won  by  his  hours  of  toil,  and  the 
freedom  of  his  mind,  to  work  only  "  at  its  own  sweet 
will,"  which  his  confinement  to  the  desk  obtained. 
This  sense  of  the  blessings  which  a  fixed  income,  derived 
from  ascertained  duties,  confers,  was  nobly  expressed  in 
reference  to  a  casual  fancy  in  one  of  the  letters  of  his 
fellow  in  clerkly  as  well  as  in  poetical  labors,  Bernard 
Barton  —  a  fancy  as  alien  to  the  habitual  thoughts  of 
his  friend,  as  to  his  own  —  for  no  one  has  pursued  a 
steadier  course  on  the  weary  way  of  duty  than  the  poet 
whose  bi'ief  dream  of  literary  engrossment  incited  Lamb 
to  make  a  generous  amends  to  his  ledger  for  all  his 
unjust  reproaches.  The  references  to  the  booksellers 
have  the  coloring  of  fantastical  exaggeration,  by  which 
he  delighted  to  give  effect  to  the  immediate  feeling ; 
but  making  allowance  for  this  mere  play  of  fancy,  how 
just  is  the  following  advice  —  how  wholesome  for  every 
youth  who  hesitates  whether  he  shall  abandon  the  cer- 
tain reward  of  plodding  industry  for  the  splendid  mis- 
eries of  authorship  !  * 

*  It  is  singular  that,  some  years  before,  Mr.  Barton  had  received  simi- 
lar advice  from  a  very  different  poet — Lord  Byron.     As  the  letter  has 


LETTERS  TO   BARTON.  319 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  January  9th,  1823. 

"  '  Throw  yourself  on  the  world  without  any  rational 
plan  of  support  beyond  what  the  chance  employ  of 
booksellers  would  afford  you  ! ! ! ' 

never  been  published,  and  it  may  be  interesting  to  compare  the  expres- 
sions of  two  men  so  different  on  the  same  subject,  I  subjoin  it  here  :  — 

"  TO   BERNARD  BARTON,   ESQ. 

"  St.  James'  Street,  June  ],  1812. 
"  Sir,  —  The  most  satisfactory  answer  to  the  concluding  part  of  your 
letter  is,  that  Mr.  Murray  will  repubJish  your  volume,  if  you  still  retain 
your  inclination  for  the  experiment,  which  I  trust  will  be  successful. 
Some  weeks  ago  my  friend  Mr.  Rogers  showed  me  some  of  the  stanzas  in 
MS.,  and  I  then  expressed  my  opinion  of  their  merit,  which  a  further  pe- 
rusal of  the  printed  volume  has  given  me  no  reason  to  revoke.  I  mention 
this,  as  it  may  not  be  disagreeable  to  you  to  leara,  that  I  entertained  a  verj- 
favorable  opinion  of  your  powers  before  I  was  aware  that  such  sentiments 
were  reciprocal.  Waiving  your  obliging  expressions  as  to  my  own  pro- 
ductions, for  which  I  thank  you  very  sincerely,  and  assure  you  that  I 
think  not  lightly  of  the  praise  of  one  whose  approbation  is  valuable ; 
will  you  allow  me  to  talk  to  you  candidly,  not  critically,  on  the  subject 
of  yours  V  You  will  not  suspect  me  of  a  wish  to  discourage,  since  I  pointed 
out  to  the  publisher  the  propriety  of  complying  with  your  wishes.  I  think 
more  highly  of  your  poetical  talents  than  it  would  perhaps  gratify  you  to 
hear  expressed,  for  I  believe,  from  what  I  observe  of  your  mind,  that  you 
are  above  flattery.  To  come  to  the  point,  you  deserve  success  ;  but  we 
knew  before  Addison  wrote  his  Cato,  that  desert  does  not  always  command 
it.    But  suppose  it  attained, 

'  You  know  what  ills  the  author's  life  assail, 
Toil,  envy,  want,  the  patron,  auj  the  jail.'  •" 

Do  not  renounce  writing,  but  never  trust  entirely  to  authm-ship.  If  you  have 
a  profession,  retain  it  ;  it  will  be,  like  Prior's  fellowship,  a  last  and  sure 
resource.  Compare  Mr.  Rogers  with  other  authors  of  the  day  ;  assuredly 
he  is  among  the  first  of  living  poets,  but  is  it  to  that  he  owes  his  station 
in  society,  and  his  intimacy  in  the  best  circles?  — no,  it  is  to  his  prudence 
and  respectability.  The  world  (a  bad  one,  I  own)  courts  him  because  he 
has  no  occasion  to  court  it.  He  is  a  poet,  nor  is  he  less  so  because  he  18 
6omething  more.  I  am  not  sorry  to  hear  that  you  were  not  tempted  by  the 
vicinity  of  Capel  Lofft,  Esq.,  —  though,  if  he  had  done  for  you  what  he  has 


320  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

"  Throw  yourself  rather,  my  dear  sh*,  from  the  steep 
Tarpeian  rock,  slap-dash  headlong  upon  iron  spikes. 
If  you  had  but  five  consolatory  minutes  between  the 
desk  and  the  bed,  make  much  of  them,  and  live  a  cen- 
tury in  them,  rather  than  turn  slave  to  the  booksellers. 
They  are  Turks  and  Tartars,  when  they  have  poor 
authors  at  their  beck.  Hitherto  you  have  been  at  arm's 
length  from  them.  Come  not  within  their  grasp.  I 
have  known  many  authors  want  for  bread,  some  repin- 
ing, others  envying  the  blessed  security  of  a  counting- 
house,  all  agreeing  they  had  rather  have  been  tailors, 
weavers  —^  what  not  ?  rather  than  the  things  they  were. 
I  have  known  some  starved,  some  to  go  mad,  one  dear 
friend  literally  dying  in  a  workhouse.  You  know  not 
what  a  rapacious,  dishonest  set  these  booksellers  are. 
Ask  even  Southey,  who  (a  single  case  almost)  has 
made  a  fortune  by  book-dnidgery,  what  he  has  found 
them.  Oh,  you  know  not,  may  you  never  know  !  the 
miseries  of  subsisting  by  authorship.  'Tis  a  pretty 
appendage  to  a  situation  like  yours  or  mine ;  but  a 
slavery,  worse  than  all  slavery,  to  be  a  bookseller's 
dependant,  to  drudge  your  brains  for  pots  of  ale  and 
breasts  of  mutton,  to  change  your  free  thoughts  and 
voluntary  numbers  for  ungi-acious  task-work.  Those 
fellows  hate  us.  The  reason  I  take  to  be,  that  contrary 
to  other  trades,  in  which  the  master  gets  all  the  credit, 
(a  jeweller  or  silversmith  for  instance,)  and  the  jour- 
neyman, who  really  does  the  fine  work,  is  in  the  back- 

for  the  Bloomfields,  I  should  never  have  laughed  at  his  rage  for  patronizing. 
But  a  truly  well-constituted  mind  will  ever  be  independent.    That  you 
may  be  so  is  my  sincere  wish  ;  and  if  others  think  as  well  of  your  poetry 
as  I  do,  you  will  have  no  cause  to  complain  of  your  readers.     Believe  me, 
"  Your  obliged  and  obedient  servant, 

"  Bykon." 


LETTERS   TO   BARTON.  321 

ground :  in  our  work  the  world  gives  all  the  credit  to 
us,  whom  they  consider  as  their  journeymen,  and  there- 
fore do  they  hate  us,  and  cheat  us,  and  oppress  us,  and 
would  wring  the  blood  of  us  out,  to  put  another  six- 
pence in  their  mechanic  pouches  !  I  contend  that  a 
bookseller  has  a  relative  hmiesty  towards  authors,  not  like 
his  honesty  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 

"  Keep  to  your  bank,  and  the  bank  will  keep  you. 
Trust  not  to  the  public  ;  you  may  hang,  starve,  drown 
yourself,  for  anything  that  worthy  'personage  cares.  I 
bless  every  star,  that  Providence,  not  seeing  good  to 
make  me  independent,  has  seen  it  next  good  to  settle 
me  upon  the  stable  foundation  of  Leadenhall.  Sit 
down,  good  B.  B.,  m  the  banking-office;  what!  is  there 
not  from  six  to  eleven  p.  m.  six  days  in  the  week,  and  is 
there  not  all  Sunday  ?  Fie,  what  a  superfluity  of  man's 
time,  if  you  could  tliink  so  !  Enough  for  relaxation, 
mu-th,  converse,  poetry,  good  thoughts,  quiet  thoughts. 
Oh  the  corroding,  torturing,  tormenting  thoughts,  that 
disturb  the  brain  of  the  unlucky  wight,  who  must  draw 
upon  it  for  daily  sustenance  !  Henceforth  I  retract  all 
my  fond  complamts  of  mercantile  employment ;  look 
upon  them  as  lovers'  quarrels.  I  was  but  half  in  ear- 
nest. Welcome  dead  timber  of  a  desk,  that  makes  me 
live.  A  little  grumbling  is  a  wholesome  medicine  for 
the  spleen,  but  in  my  inner  heart  do  I  approve  and 
embrace  this  our  close  but  unharassing  way  of  life.  I 
am  quite  serious.  If  you  can  send  me  Fox,  I  will  not 
keep  it  dx  weeks,  and  will  return  it,  with  warm  thanks 
to  yom-self  and  friend,  without  blot  or  dog's  ear.  You 
will  much  oblige  me  by  this  kindness. 

"  Yours  truly,  C.   Lamb." 

VOL.  I.  21 


322  LETTERS  TO   BARTON. 

Lamb  thus  communicated  to  Mr.  Barton  his  prosecu- 
tion of  his  researches  into  Primitive  Quakerism. 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  February  IVth,  1823. 

"  My  dear  Sir,  —  I  have  read  quite  through  the  pon- 
derous folio  of  George  Fox.  I  think  Sewell  has  been 
judicious  in  omitting  certain  parts,  as  for  instance  where 
G.  F.  has  revealed  to  him  the  natures  of  all  the  crea- 
tures in  their  names,  as  Adam  had.  He  luckily  turns 
aside  from  that  compendious  study  of  natural  history, 
•which  might  have  superseded  Buffon,  to  his  proper 
spiritual  pursuits,  only  just  hinting  what  a  philosopher 
he  might  have  been.  The  ominous  passage  is  near  the 
beginning  of  the  book.  It  is  clear  he  means  a  physical 
knowledge,  without  trope  or  figure.  Also,  pretences 
to  miraculous  healing,  and  the  like,  are  more  frequent 
than  I  should  have  suspected  from  the  epitome  in  Sew- 
ell. He  is,  nevertheless,  a  great  spiritual  man,  and 
I  feel  very  much  obliged  by  your  procuring  me  the 
loan  of  it.  How  I  like  the  Quaker  phrases,  though  I 
think  they  were  hardly  completed  till  Woolman.  A 
pretty  little  manual  of  Quaker  language  (with  an  en- 
deavor to  explain  them)  might  be  gathered  out  of  his 
book.  Could  not  you  do  it  ?  I  have  read  through 
G.  F.  without  finding  any  explanation  of  the  term  first 
volume  in  the  title-page.  It  takes  in  all,  both  his  life 
and  his  death.  Are  there  more  last  words  of  him  ? 
Pray,  how  may  I  return  it  to  Mr.  Shewell  at  Ipswich  ? 
I  fear  to  send  such  a  treasure  by  a  stage-coach ;  not 
that  I  am  afraid  of  the  coachman  or  the  guard  reading 
it :  but  it  might  be  lost.     Can  you  put  me  in  a  way  of 


LETTERS    TO   BARTON.  323 

sending  it  in  safety  ?  The  kind-hearted  owner  trusted 
it  to  me  for  six  months  ;  I  think  I  was  about  as  many- 
days  in  getting  through  it,  and  I  do  not  think  that  I 
skipped  a  word  of  it.  I  have  quoted  G.  F.  in  my  '  Qua- 
kers' Meeting,'  as  having  said  he  was  '  Hfted  up  in 
spirit,'  (which  I  felt  at  the  time  to  be  not  a  Quaker 
phrase,)  '  and  tlie  judge  and  jury  were  as  dead  men 
under  his  feet.'  I  find  no  such  words  in  his  journal, 
and  I  did  not  get  them  from  Sewell,  and  the  latter 
sentence  I  am  sure  I  did  not  mean  to  invent :  I  must 
have  put  some  other  Quaker's  words  into  his  mouth. 
Is  it  a  fatality  in  me,  that  everything  I  touch  turns  into 
'  a  lie  ?  '  I  once  quoted  two  lines  from  a  translation  of 
Dante,  which  Hazlitt  very  greatly  admired,  and  quoted 
in  a  book  as  proof  of  the  stupendous  power  of  that  poet, 
but  no  such  lines  are  to  be  found  in  the  translation, 
which  has  been  searched  for  the  purpose.  I  must  have 
dreamed  them,  for  I  am  quite  certain  I  did  not  forge 
them  knowingly.  What  a  misfortune  to  have  a  lying 
memory !  Your  description  of  Mr.  Mitford's  place 
makes  me  long  for  a  pippin  and  some  caraways,  and  a 
cup  of  sack  in  his  orchard,  when  the  sweets  of  the 
night  come  in. 

"Farewell,  C.  Lamb." 


& 


In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1823,  the  "  Essays  of 
Elia,"  collected  in  a  volume,  were  published  by  Messrs. 
Taylor  and  Hessey,  who  had  become  the  proprietors 
of  the  "  London  Magazine."  The  book  met  with  a 
rapid  sale,  while  the  magazine  in  which  its  contents  had 
appeared,  declined.  The  anecdote  of  the  three  Quakers 
gravely  walking  out  of  the  inn  where  they  had  taken 
tea  on  the  road,  on  an  extortionate  demand,  one  after 


324  LETTERS   TO   BARTON. 

the  other,  without  paying  anything,*  had  excited  some 
gentle  remonstrance  on  the  part  of  Barton's  sister,  to 
which  Lamb  thus  repKed. 


TO   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  March  11th,  1823. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  The  approbation  of  my  little  book  by 
your  sister  is  very  pleasing  to  me.  The  Quaker  inci- 
dent did  not  happen  to  me,  but  to  Carlisle  the  surgeon, 
from  whose  mouth  I  have  twice  heard  it,  at  an  interval 
of  ten  or  twelve  years,  with  little  or  no  variation,  and 
have  given  it  as  exactly  as  I  could  remember  it.  The 
gloss  which  your  sister  or  you  have  put  upon  it,  does 
not  strike  me  as  correct.  Carlisle  drew  no  inference 
from  it  against  the  honesty  of  the  Quakers,  but  only  in 
favor  of  their  surpassing  coolness  ;  that  they  should 
be  capable  of  committing  a  good  joke,  with  an  utter 
insensibility  to  its  being  any  jest  at  all.  I  have  reason 
to  believe  in  the  truth  of  it,  because,  as  I  have  said,  I 
heard  him  repeat  it  without  variation  at  such  an  inter- 
val. The  story  loses  sadly  in  print,  for  Carlisle  is 
the  best  story-teller  I  ever  heard.  The  idea  of  the 
discovery  of  roasting  pigs  I  also  borrowed  from  my 
friend  Manning,  and  am  willing  to  confess  both  my 
plagiarisms.  Should  fate  ever  so  order  it  that  you  shall 
be  in  town  with  your  sister,  mine  bids  me  say,  that  she 
shall  have  great  pleasure  in  being  introduced  to  her. 
Your  endeavour  at  explaining  Fox's  insight  into  the 
natures  of  animals  must  fail,  as  I  shall  transcribe  the 
passage.  It  appears  to  me  that  he  stopt  short  in  time, 
and  was  on  the  brink  of  falling  with  liis  friend  Naylor, 
*  See  "  Imperfect  Sympathies."  — Essays  of  Elia,  p.  86. 


LETTERS   TO  BARTON.  325 

my  favorite.     The  book  shall  be  forthcoming  when- 
ever your  friend  can  make  convenient  to  call  for  it. 

"  They  have  dragged  me  again  into  the  Magazine, 
but  I  feel  the  spirit  of  the  thing  in  my  own  mind  quite 
gone.  '  Some  brains  '  (I  think  Ben  Jonson  says  it) 
'  will  endure  but  one  skimmina:.'  We  are  about  to 
have  an  inundation  of  poetry  from  the  Lakes  —  Words- 
worth and  Southey  are  commg  up  strong  from  the 
north.  How  did  you  like  Hartley's  sonnets  ?  The  first, 
at  least,  is  vastly  fine.  I  am  ashamed  of  the  shabby 
letters  I  send,  but  I  am  by  nature  anytliing  but  neat. 
Therein  my  mother  bore  me  no  Quaker.  I  never  could 
seal  a  letter  without  dropping  the  wax  on  one  side,  be- 
sides scalding  my  fingers.  I  never  had  a  seal,  too,  of 
my  own.  Writing  to  a  great  man  lately,  who  is  more- 
over very  heraldic,  I  borrowed  a  seal  of  a  friend,  who 
by  the  female  side  quarters  the  Protectoral  arms  of 
Cromwell.  How  they  must  have  puzzled  my  corre- 
spondent !  My  letters  are  generally  charged  as  double 
at  the  Post-office,  from  their  inveterate  clumsiness  of 
foldm-e  ;  so  you  must  not  take  it  disrespectful  to  your- 
self, if  I  send  you  such  ungainly  scraps.  I  think  I  lose 
lOOZ.  a-year  at  the  India  House,  owing  solely  to  my 
want  of  neatness  in  making  up  accounts.  How  I  puz- 
zle 'em  out  at  last  is  the  wonder.  I  have  to  do  with 
millions  !  ! 

"  It  is  time  to  have  done  my  incoherences. 
"  Believe  me,  yours  truly, 

"  C.  Lamb. 

Lamb  thus  records  a  meeting  with  the  poets. 


326  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  April  5th,  1823." 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  I  wished  for  you  yesterday.  I  dined 
in  Parnassus,  with  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Rogers,  and 
Tom  Moore,  —  half  the  poetry  of  England  constellated 
and  clustered  in  Gloucester  Place  !  It  was  a  delight- 
ful evening  !  Coleridge  was  in  his  finest  vein  of  talk 
—  had  all  the  talk  ;  and  let  'em  talk  as  evilly  as  they 
do  of  the  envy  of  poets,  I  am  sure  not  one  there  but 
was  content  to  be  nothing  but  a  listener.  The  Muses 
were  dumb,  while  Apollo  lectured,  on  his  and  their  fine 
art.  It  is  a  lie  that  poets  are  envious ;  I  have  known 
the  best  of  them,  and  can  speak  to  it,  that  they  give 
each  other  their  merits,  and  are  the  kindest  ciitics  as 
well  as  best  authors.  I  am  scribbhng  a  muddy  epistle 
with  an  aching  head,  for  we  did  not  quaff  Hippocrene 
last  night ;  marry,  it  was  hippocrass  rather.  Pray 
accept  this  as  a  letter  in  the  meantime,  C.  L." 

Here  is  an  apology  for  a  letter,  referring  to  a  seal 
used  on  the  letter  to  which  this  is  an  answer  —  the 
device  was  a  pelican  feeding  her  young  from  her  own 
breast. 

TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  May  3rd,  1823. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  I  am  vexed  to  be  two  letters  in  your 
debt,  but  I  have  been  quite  out  of  the  vein  lately.  A 
philosophical  treatise  is  wanting,  of  the  causes  of  the 
backwardness  with  which  persons  after  a  certain  time 
of  life  set  about  writing  a  letter.     I  always  feel  as  if  I 


LETTER  TO  PROCTER.  327 

had   nothing   to    say,  and   the   performance   generally 
justifies  the  presentiment. 

"  I  do  not  exactly  see  why  the  goose  and  little 
goshngs  should  emblematize  a  Quaker  poet  that  has  no 
children.  But  after  all  perhaps  it  is  a  pelican.  The 
'  Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin '  around  it  I  cannot 
decipher.  The  songster  of  the  night,  pouring  out  her 
effusions  amid  a  silent  meeting  of  madge-owlets,  would 
be  at  least  intelligible.  A  full  pause  here  comes  upon 
me  as  if  I  had  not  a  word  more  left.  I  will  shake  my 
brain.  Once !  Twice  !  —  nothing  comes  up.  George 
Fox  recommends  waiting;  on  these  occasions.  I  wait. 
Nothing  comes.  G.  Fox  —  that  sets  me  off  again.  I 
have  finished  the  '  Journal,'  and  400  more  pages  of  the 
^Doctrinals,'  which  I  picked  up  for  7s.  6d.  If  I  get 
on  at  this  rate,  the  society  will  be  in  danger  of  having 
two  Quaker  poets  —  to  patronize. 

"  Believe  me  cordially  yours, 

"  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  letter  was  addressed  to  Mr.  Procter, 
in  acknowledgment  of  a  miniature  of  Pope  which  he 
had  presented  to  Lamb. 


TO  MR.  PROCTER. 

"  April  13th,  1823. 

"  Dear  Lad,  —  You  must  think  me  a  brute  beast,  a 
rhinoceros,  never  to  have  acknowledged  the  receipt  of 
your  precious  present.  But  indeed  I  am  none  of  those 
shocking  things,  but  have  arrived  at  that  indisposition 
to  letter-writing,  which  would  make  it  a  hard  exertion 
to  write  three  lines  to  a  king  to  spare  a  friend's  life. 


328  LETTER  TO  PROCTER. 

Whether  it  is  that  the  Magazine  paying  me  so  much  a 
page,  I  am  loath  to  throw  away  composition  —  how 
much  a  sheet  do  you  give  your  correspondents  ?  I 
have  hung  up  Pope,  and  a  gem  it  is,  in  my  town  room ; 
I  hope  for  your  approval.  Though  it  accompanies  the 
'  Essay  on  Man,'  I  think  that  was  not  the  poem  he  is 
here  meditating.  He  would  have  looked  up,  somehow 
affectedly,  if  he  were  just  conceiving  '  Awake,  my 
St.  John.'  Neither  is  he  in  the  '  Rape  of  the  Lock ' 
mood  exactly.  I  think  he  has  just  made  out  the  last 
lines  of  the  '  Epistle  to  Jervis,'  between  gay  and  ten- 
der, 

'  And  other  beauties  envy  Worsley's  eyes.' 

"  I'll  be  hanged  if  that  isn't  the  line.  He  is  brooding 
over  it,  with  a  dreamy  phantom  of  Lady  Mary  floating 
before  him.  He  is  thinking  which  is  the  earliest  pos- 
sible day  and  hour  that  she  will  first  see  it.  What  a 
miniature  piece  of  gentihty  it  is  !  Why  did  you  give 
it  me  ?  I  do  not  like  you  enough  to  give  you  anything 
so  good. 

"  I  have  dined  with  T.  Moore  and  breakfasted  with 
Rogers,  since  I  saw  you  ;  have  much  to  say  about  them 
when  we  meet,  which  I  trust  will  be  in  a  week  or  two. 
I  have  been  over-watched  and  o  /er-poeted  since  Words- 
worth has  been  in  town.  I  was  obliged  for  health 
sake  to  wish  him  gone,  but  now  he  is  gone  I  feel  a  great 
loss.  I  am  going  to  Dalston  to  recruit,  and  have 
serious  thoughts  of —  altering  my  condition,  that  is,  of 
taking  to  sobriety.     What  do  you  advise  me  ? 

"  Rogers  spoke  very  kindly  of  you,  as  every  body 
does,  and  none  with  so  much  reason  as  your 

"  C.  L." 


LAMB'S  CONTROVERSY  WITH  SOUTHEY.  329 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

[1823.1 
lamb's   controversy   with   SOUTHEY. 

In  the  year  1823,  Lamb  appeared,  for  the  first  and 
only  time  of  his  life  before  the  pubhc,  as  an  assailant ; 
and  the  object  of  his  attack  was  one  of  his  oldest  and 
fastest  friends,  Mr.  Southey.  It  might,  indeed,  have 
been  predicted  of  Lamb,  that  if  ever  he  did  enter  the 
arena  of  personal  controversy,  it  would  be  with  one 
who  had  obtained  a  place  in  his  aflfection ;  for  no  mo- 
tive less  powerful  than  the  resentment  of  friendship 
which  deemed  itself  wounded,  could  place  him  in  a 
situation  so  abhorrent  to  his  habitual  thoughts.  Lamb 
had,  up  to  this  time,  little  reason  to  love  reviews  or 
reviewers ;  and  the  connexion  of  Southey  with  "  The 
Quarterly  Review,"  while  he  felt  that  it  raised,  and 
softened,  and  refined  the  tone  of  that  powerfril  organ  of 
a  great  party,  sometimes  vexed  him  for  his  friend.  His 
indignation  also  had  been  enlisted  on  behalf  of  Hazlitt 
and  Hunt,  who  had  been  attacked  in  this  work  in  a 
manner  which  he  regarded  as  unfair  ;  for  the  critics 
had  not  been  content  with  descanting  on  the  peculiar- 
ities in  the  style  and  taste  of  the  one,  or  reprobating 
the  political  or  personal  vehemence  of  the  other, — 
which  were  fair  subjects  of  controversy, — but  spoke  of 
them  with  a  contempt  which  every  man  of  letters  had 
a  right  to  resent,  as  unjust.  He  had  been  much  an- 
noyed by  an  allusion  to  himself  in  an  article  on  "  Haz- 
litt's  Political  Essays,"  which  appeared  in  the  Review 


330  LAMB'S   CONTROVERSY   WITH   SOUTHEY. 

for  November,  1819,  as  "  one  whom  we  should  wish  to 
see  hi  more  respectable  company  ;  "  for  he  felt  a  com- 
pliment paid  him  at  the  expense  of  a  friend,  as  a  griev- 
ance far  beyond  any  direct  attack  on  himself.  He  was 
also  exceedingly  hurt  by  a  reference  made  in  an  article 
on  Dr.  Reid's  work  "  On  Nervous  Affections,"  which 
appeared  in  July,  1822,  to  an  essay  which  he  had  con- 
ti'ibuted  some  years  before  to  a  collection  of  tracts 
published  by  his  friend,  Mr.  Basil  Montague,  on  the 
effect  of  spmtuous  liquors,  entitled  "  The  Confessions 
of  a  Drunkard."  The  contribution  of  this  paper  is  a 
striking  proof  of  the  prevalence  of  Lamb's  personal 
regards  over  all  selfish  feelings  and  tastes  ;  for  no  one 
was  less  disposed  than  he  to  Montague's  theory  or 
practice  of  abstinence  ;  yet  he  was  willing  to  gratify 
his  friend  by  this  terrible  picture  of  the  extreme  effects 
of  intemperance,  of  which  his  own  occasional  deviations 
from  the  right  line  of  sobriety  had  given  him  hints  and 
glimpses.  The  reviewer  of  Dr.  Reid,  adverting  to  this 
essay,  speaks  of  it  as  "  a  fearful  picture  of  the  conse- 
quences of  intemperance,  which  w^e  happen  to  know  is 
a  true  tale."  How  far  it  was  from  actual  truth  the 
"  Essays  of  Elia,"  the  production  of  a  later  day,  in 
Avhich  the  maturity  of  his  feeling,  humor,  and  reason  is 
exhibited,  may  sufficiently  witness.  These  articles  were 
not  written  by  Mr.  Southey ;  but  they  prepared  Lamb 
to  feel  acutely  any  attack  from  the  Review  ;  and  a  para- 
gri^ph  in  an  article  in  the  number  for  July,  1823,  en- 
titled "  Progress  of  Infidelity,"  in  which  he  recognized 
the  hand  of  his  old  friend,  gave  poignancy  to  all  the 
painfril  associations  which  had  arisen  from  the  same 
work,  and  concentrated  them  in  one  bitter  feeling. 
After  recording  some  of  the  confessions  of  unbelievers 


LAMB'S   CONTROVERSY  WITH  SOUTHEY.  331 

of  the  wretchedness  which  their  infidehty  brought  on 
them,  Mr.  Southey  thus  proceeded  :  — 

"  Unbelievers  have  not  always  been  honest  enough 
thus  to  express  their  real  feelings  ;  but  this  we  know 
concerning  them,  that  when  they  have  renounced  their 
birthi'ight  of  hope,  they  have  not  been  able  to  divest 
themselves  of  fear.  From  the  nature  of  the  human 
mind,  this  might  be  presumed,  and  in  fact  it  is  so. 
They  may  deaden  the  heart  and  stupify  the  conscience, 
but  they  cannot  destroy  the  imaginative  faculty.  There 
is  a  remarkable  proof  of  this  in  '  Elia's  Essays,'  a  book 
which  wants  only  a  sounder  religious  feeling,  to  be  as 
delightful  as  it  is  original.  In  that  upon  '  Witches  and 
the  other  Night  Fears,'  he  says,  '  It  is  not  book,  or  pic- 
ture, or  the  stories  of  foolish  servants,  which  create  these 
terrors  in  children  ;  they  can  at  most  but  give  them  a 
direction.  Dear  little  T.  H.,  who  of  all  children  has 
been  brought  up  with  the  most  scrupulous  exclusion  of 
every  taint  of  superstition,  who  was  never  allowed  to 
hear  of  goblin  or  apparition,  or  scarcely  to  be  told  of 
bad  men,  or  to  hear  or  read  of  any  distressing  story, 
finds  all  this  world  of  fear,  from  which  he  has  been  so 
rigidly  excluded  ah  extra^  in  his  own  "  thick-coming 
fancies,"  and  from  his  little  midnight  pillow  this,  nurse 
child  of  optimism  will  start  at  shapes,  unborrowed  of 
tradition,  in  sweats  to  which  the  reveries  of  the  well- 
damned  mmxlerer  are  tranquillity.'  —  This  poor  child, 
instead  of  being  trained  up  in  the  way  he  should  go, 
had  been  bred  in  the  ways  of  modern  philosophy  ;  he 
had  systematically  been  prevented  from  knowing  any- 
thing of  that  Saviour  who  said,  '  Suffer  little  children 
to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not,  for  of  such  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven ;"  care  had  been  taken  that  he 


332  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

should  not  pray  to  God,  nor  lie  down  at  night  in  reli- 
ance upon  his  good  providence  !  Nor  let  it  be  supposed 
that  terrors  of  imagination  belong  to  childhood  alone. 
The  reprobate  heart,  which  has  discarded  all  love  of 
God,  cannot  so  easily  rid  itself  of  the  fear  of  the  devil ; 
and  even  when  it  succeeds  in  that  also,  it  will  then  cre- 
ate a  hell  for  itself.  We  have  heard  of  unbelievers 
who  thought  it  probable  that  they  should  be  aAvake  in 
their  graves  ;  and  this  was  the  opinion  for  which  they 
had  exchanged  a  Christian's  hope  of  immortality ! " 

The  allusion  in  this  paragraph  was  really,  as  Lamb 
was  afterwards  convinced,  intended  by  Mr.  Southey  to 
assist  the  sale  of  the  book.  In  haste,  having  expunged 
some  word  which  he  thought  improper,  he  wTote 
'  sounder  religious  feehng,'  not  satisfied  with  the  epithet, 
but  meaning  to  correct  it  in  the  proof,  which  unfortu- 
nately was  never  sent  him.  Lamb  saw  it  on  liis  return 
from  a  month's  pleasant  holidays  at  Hastings,  and  ex- 
pressed his  first  impression  respecting  it  in  a  letter 


TO   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  July  10th,  1823. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  I  have  just  returned  from  Hastings, 
where  are  exquisite  views  and  walks,  and  where  I  have 
given  up  my  soul  to  walking,  and  I  am  now  suffering 
sedentary  contrasts.  I  am  a  long  time  reconciling  to 
town  after  one  of  these  excursions.  Home  is  become 
strange,  and  will  remain  so  yet  a  while  ;  home  is  the 
most  unforgiving  of  friends,  and  always  resents  absence ; 
I  know  its  old  cordial  looks  will  return,  but  they  are 
slow  in  clearing  up.  That  is  one  of  the  features  of 
this  our  galley-slavery,  that  peregrination  ended  makes 


LETTERS  TO   BAETON.  333 

things  worse.  I  felt  out  of  water  (with  all  the  sea 
about  me)  at  Hastings  ;  and  just  as  I  had  learned  to 
domiciliate  there,  I  must  come  back  to  find  a  home 
which  is  no  home.  I  abused  Hastings,  but  learned  its 
value.  There  are  spots,  inland  bays,  &c.,  which  realize 
the  notions  of  Juan  Fernandez.  The  best  thing  I  lit 
upon  by  accident  was  a  small  country  church,  (by 
whom  or  when  biiilt  unknown,)  standing  bare  and 
single  in  the  midst  of  a  grove,  with  no  house  or  appear- 
ance of  habitation  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  only  pas- 
sages diverging  from  it  through  beautiful  woods  to  so 
many  farm-houses.  There  it  stands  like  the  first  idea 
of  a  church,  before  parishioners  were  thought  of,  noth- 
ing but  birds  for  its  congregation  ;  or  like  a  hermit's 
oratory  (the  hermit  dead),  or  a  mausoleum  ;  its  effect 
singularly  impressive,  like  a  church  found  in  a  desert 
isle  to  startle  Crusoe  with  a  home  image  ;  you  must 
make  out  a  vicar  and  a  congregation  from  fancy,  for 
surely  none  come  there  ;  yet  it  wants  not  its  pulpit,  and 
its  font,  and  all  the  seemly  additaments  of  our  worship. 
"  Southey  has  attacked  '  Elia '  on  the  score  of  infi- 
delity, in  the  Quarterly  article,  '  Progress  of  Infidelity.' 
I  had  not,  nor  have  seen  the  Monthly.  He  might  have 
spared  an  old  friend  such  a  construction  of  a  few  care- 
less fliohts,  that  meant  no  harm  to  religion.  If  all  his 
unguarded  expressions  on  the  subject  were  to  be  col- 
lected —  but  I  love  and  respect  Southey,  and  will  not 
retort.  I  hate  his  review,  and  his  being  a  reviewer. 
The  hint  he  has  dropped  will  knock  the  sale  of  the 
book  on  the  head,  which  was  almost  at  a  stop  before. 
Let  it  stop,  —  there  is  corn  in  Egypt,  while  there  is 
cash  at  Leadenhall !  You  and  I  are  something  besides 
being  writers,  thank  God  ! 

"  Yours  truly,  C.  L." 


334  LETTERS   TO   BARTON. 

This  feeling  was  a  little  diverted  by  the  execution  of 
a  scheme,  rather  suddenly  adopted,  of  removing  to  a 
neat  cottage  at  Islington,  where  Lamb  first  found  him- 
self installed  in  the  dignity  of  a  householder.  He  thus 
describes  his  residence  :  — 

TO    BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  September   2nd,   1823. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  What  will  you  say  to  my  not  writ- 
ing ?  You  cannot  say,  I  do  not  write  now.  When  you 
come  London-ward,  you  will  find  me  no  longer  in  Co- 
vent  Garden ;  I  have  a  cottage  in  Colebrook  Row,  Isling- 
ton ;  a  cottage,  for  it  is  detached  ;  a  white  house,  with 
six  good  rooms  ;  the  New  River  (rather  elderly  by  this 
time)  runs  (if  a  moderate  walking  pace  can  be  so 
termed)  close  to  the  foot  of  the  house  ;  and  behind  is  a 
spacious  garden  with  vines  (I  assure  you),  pears,  straw- 
berries, parsnips,  leeks,  carrots,  cabbages,  to  delight  the 
heart  of  old  Alcinous.  You  enter  without  passage  into 
a  cheerful  dining-room,  all  studded  over  and  rough  with 
old  books ;  and  above  is  a  lightsome  drawing-room, 
three  windows,  full  of  choice  prints.  I  feel  like  a 
great  lord,  never  having  had  a  house  before. 

"  The  '  London,'  I  fear,  falls  off.  I  linger  among 
its  creaking  rafters,  like  the  last  rat ;  it  will  topple 
down  if  they  don't  get  some  buttresses.  They  have 
pulled  down  three  ;  Hazlitt,  Procter,  and  their  best 
stay,  kind,  light-hearted  Wainwright,  their  Janus.  The 
best  is,  neither  of  our  fortunes  is  concerned  in  it. 

"  I  heard  of  you  from  Mr.  Pulham  this  morning, 
and  that  gave  a  fillip  to  my  laziness,  which  has  been 
intolerable  ;  but  I  am  so  taken  up  with  pruning  and 
gardening,   quite  a  new  sort  of  occupation  to  me.     I 


LETTERS  TO   BARTON.  335 

have  gathered  my  jargonels,  but  my  Windsor  pears 
are  backward.  The  former  were  of  exquisite  raciness. 
I  do  now  sit  under  my  own  vine,  and  contemplate  the 
growth  of  vegetable  nature.  I  can  now  understand  in 
what  sense  they  speak  of  father  Adam.  I  recognize 
the  paternity,  while  I  watch  my  tulips.  I  almost  fell 
with  him,  for  the  first  day  I  turned  a  drunken  gardener 
(as  he  let  in  the  serpent)  into  my  Eden,  and  he 
laid  about  him,  lopping  off  some  choice  boughs,  &c., 
which  hung  over  from  a  neighbor's  garden,  and  in 
his  blind  zeal  laid  waste  a  shade,  which  had  sheltered 
their  window  from  the  gaze  of  passers-by.  The  old 
gentlewoman  (fury  made  her  not  handsome)  could 
scarcely  be  reconciled  by  all  my  fine  words.  There 
was  no  buttering  her  parsnips.  She  talked  of  the  law. 
What  a  lapse  to  commit  on  the  first  day  of  my  happy 
'  garden-state  !  ' 

"  I  hope  you  transmitted  the  Fox-Journal  to  its 
owner,  with  suitable  thanks.  Mr.  Gary,  the  Dante- 
man,  dines  with  me  to-day.  He  is  a  model  of  a  coun- 
try parson,  lean,  (as  a  curate  ought  to  be,)  modest,  sen- 
sible, no  obtruder  of  church-dogmas,  quite  a  different 

man  from .     You  would  like  him.     Pray  accept 

this  for  a  letter,  and  believe  me,  with  sincere  regards, 

"  Yours,  C.  L." 

In  the  next  letter  to  Barton,  Lamb  referred  to  an  in- 
tended letter  to  Southey  in  the  Magazine. 

TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  September  irth,  1823. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  I  have  again  been  reading  your  '  Stan- 
zas on  Bloomfield,'  which  are  the  most  appropriate  that 


336  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

can  be  imagined,  —  sweet  with  Doric  delicacy.  I  like 
that,  — 

'  Our  own  more  chaste  Theocritus  '  — 

just  hinting  at  the  fault  of  the  Grecian.  I  love  that 
stanza  ending  with, 

'  Words,  phrases,  fashions,  pass  away; 
But  truth  and  nature  live  through  all. 

But  I  shall  omit  in  mj  own  copy  the  one  stanza  which 
alludes  to  Lord  B.  I  suppose.  It  spoils  the  sweetness 
and  oneness  of  the  feeling.  Cannot  we  think  of  Burns, 
or  Thomson,  without  sullying  the  thought  with  a  reflec- 
tion out  of  place  upon  Lord  B,ocliester  ?  These  verses 
might  have  been  inscribed  upon  a  tomb  ;  are  in  fact  an 
epitaph  ;  satire  does  not  look  pretty  upon  a  tombstone. 
Besides,  there  is  a  quotation  in  it,  always  bad  in  verse, 
seldom  advisable  in  prose.  I  doubt  if  their  having 
been  in  a  paper  will  not  prevent  T.  and  H.  from  in- 
sertion, but  I  shall  have  a  thmg  to  send  in  a  day  or 
two,  and  shall  try  them.  Omitting  that  stanza,  a  very 
little  alteration  is  wanting  in  the  beginning  of  the  next. 
You  see,  I  use  freedom.  How  happily,  (I  flatter  not) 
you  have  brought  in  his  subjects  ;  and  (I  suppose) 
his  favorite  measure,  though  I  am  not  acquainted 
with  any  of  his  writings  but  the  '  Farmer's  Boy.' 
He  dined  with  me  once,  and  his  manners  took  me 
exceedingly. 

"  I  rejoice  that  you  forgive  my  long  silence.  I  con- 
tinue to  estimate  my  own-roof  comforts  highly.  How 
could  I  remain  all  my  life  a  lodger?  My  garden 
thrives  (I  am  told),  though  I  have  yet  reaped  nothing 
but  some  tiny  salad,  and  withered  carrots.  But  a 
garden's  a  garden  anywhere,  and  twice  a  garden  in 
London. 


ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY.  337 

"  Do  you  go  on  with  your  '  Quaker  Sonnets  ?  '  have 
'em  ready  with  '  Southey's  Book  of  the  Church.'  I 
meditate  a  letter  to  S.  in  the  '  London,'  which  perhaps 
will  meet  the  fate  of  the  Sonnet. 

"  Excuse  my  brevity,  for  I  write  painfully  at  office, 
liable  to  a  hundx-ed  callings  off;  and  I  can  never  sit 
down  to  an  epistle  elsewhere.  I  read  or  walk.  If  you 
return  this  letter  to  the  Post-office,  I  think  they  will 
return  fourpence,  seeing  it  is  but  half  a  one.  Believe 
me,  though, 

"  Entirely  yours,  C.  L." 

The  contemplated  expostulation  with  Southey  was 
written,  and  appeared  in  the  "  London  Magazine  for 
October,  1823."  Lamb  did  not  print  it  in  any  subse- 
quent collection  of  his  essays ;  but  I  give  it  now,  as  I 
have  reason  to  know  that  its  publication  will  cause  no 
painful  feehngs  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Southey,  and  as  it 
forms  the  only  ripple  on  the  kindliness  of  Lamb's  per- 
sonal and  literary  life. 


LETTER  OF  ELIA  TO  ROBERT  SOUTHEY,  ESQ. 

"  Sir,  —  You  have  done  me  an  unfriendly  office, 
without  perhaps  much  considering  what  you  were  do- 
ing. You  have  given  an  ill  name  to  my  poor  lucubra- 
tions. In  a  recent  paper  on  Infidelity,  you  usher  in  a 
conditional  commendation  of  them  with  an  exception  : 
which,  preceding  the  encomium,  and  taking  up  nearly 
the  same  space  with  it,  must  impress  your  readers  with 
the  notion,  that  the  objectionable  parts  in  them  are  at 
least  equal  in  quantity  to  the  pardonable.  The  censure 
is    in    fact   the   criticism ;    the   praise  —  a  concession 

VOL.   I.  22 


338  ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY. 

merely.  Exceptions  usually  follow,  to  qualify  praise  or 
blame.  But  there  stands  your  reproof,  in  the  very 
front  of  your  notice,  in  ugly  characters,  like  some  bug- 
bear, to  frighten  all  good  Christians  from  purchasing. 
Through  you  I  become  an  object  of  suspicion  to  pre- 
ceptors of  youth,  and  fathers  of  families.  '  A  booJc^ 
wliicli  wants  only  a  sounder  religious  feeling  to  he  as 
delightful  as  it  is  originaV  With  no  further  expla- 
nation, what  must  your  readers  conjecture,  but  that 
my  little  volume  is  some  vehicle  for  heresy  or  infi- 
delity ?  The  quotation,  which  you  honor  me  by  sub- 
joining, oddly  enough,  is  of  a  character  which  bespeaks 
a  temperament  in  the  writer  the  very  reverse  of  that 
your  reproof  goes  to  insinuate.  Had  you  been  taxing 
me  with  superstition,  the  passage  would  have  been  per- 
tinent to  the  censure.  Was  it  worth  your  while  to 
go  so  far  out  of  your  way  to  affi'ont  the  feelings  of  an 
old  friend,  and  commit  yourself  by  an  irrelevant  quo- 
tation, for  the  pleasure  of  reflecting  upon  a  poor  child, 
an  exile  at  Genoa  ? 

"  I  am  at  a  loss  what  particular  essay  you  had  in 
view  (if  my  poor  ramblings  amount  to  that  appellation) 
when  you  were  in  such  a  hurry  to  thrust  in  your  objec- 
tion, like  bad  news,  foremost.  Perhaps  the  paper  on 
*  Saying  Graces  '  was  the  obnoxious  feature.  I  have 
endeavored  there  to  rescue  a  voluntary  duty  —  good  in 
place,  but  never,  as  I  remember,  literally  commanded 
—  from  the  chai'ge  of  an  undecent  formality.  Rightly 
taken,  sir,  that  paper  was  not  against  graces,  but  want 
of  grace  ;  not  against  the  ceremony,  but  the  careless- 
ness and  slovenliness  so  often  observed  in  the  perform- 
ance of  it. 

"  Or  was  it  that  on  the  '  New  Year '  —  in  which  I 


ELIA  TO  SOUTHEY.  339 

have  described  the  feelings  of  the  merely  natural  man, 
on  a  consideration  of  the  amazing  change,  which  is  sup- 
posable  to  take  place  on  our  removal  from  this  fleshly 
scene  ?  If  men  would  honestly  confess  their  misgiv- 
ings (which  few  men  will),  there  are  times  when  the 
strongest  Christian  of  us,  I  believe,  has  reeled  under 
questionings  of  such  staggering  obscurity.  I  do  not 
accuse  you  of  this  weakness.  There  are  some  who 
tremblingly  reach  out  shaking  hands  to  the  guidance  of 
Faith  —  others  who  stoutly  venture  into  the  dark  (their 
Human  Confidence  their  leader,  whom  they  mistake 
for  Faith)  ;  and,  investing  themselves  beforehand  with 
cherubic  wings,  as  they  fancy,  find  then-  new  robes  as 
familiar,  and  fitting  to  their  supposed  growth  and  stat- 
ure in  godliness,  as  the  coat  they  left  off  yesterday  — 
some  whose  hope  totters  upon  crutches  —  others  who 
stalk  into  futurity  upon  stilts. 

"  The  contemplation  of  a  Spiritual  World,  —  which, 
without  the  addition  of  a  misgiving  conscience,  is 
enough  to  shake  some  natures  to  their  foundation  —  is 
smoothly  got  over  by  others,  who  shall  float  over  the 
black  billows  in  their  little  boat  of  No-Distrust,  as  un- 
concernedly as  over  a  summer  sea.  The  difference  is 
chiefly  constitutional. 

"  One  man  shall  love  his  friends  and  his  friends' 
faces  ;  and,  under  the  uncertainty  of  conversing  with 
them  again,  in  the  same  manner  and  familiar  circum- 
stances of  sight,  speech,  &c.  as  upon  earth  —  in  a  mo- 
ment of  no  irreverent  weakness  —  for  a  dream-while  — 
no  more  —  would  be  almost  content,  for  a  reward  of  a 
life  of  virtue  (if  he  could  ascribe  such  acceptance  to  his 
lame  performances),  to  take  up  his  portion  with  those 
he  loved,  and  was  made  to  love,  in  this  good  world. 


340  ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY. 

which  he  knows  —  which  was  created  so  lovely,  beyond 
his  deservings.  Another,  embracing  a  more  exalted 
vision  —  so  that  he  might  receive  indefinite  additaments 
of  power,  knowledge,  beauty,  glory,  &c.,  —  is  ready  to 
forego  the  recognition  of  humbler  individualities  of 
earth,  and  the  old  familiar  faces.  The  shapings  of  our 
heavens  are  the  modifications  of  our  constitution  ;  and 
Mr.  Feeble  Mind,  or  Mr.  Great  Heart,  is  born  in  every 
one  of  us. 

"  Some  (and  such  have  been  accounted  the  safest 
divines),  have  shrunk  from  pronouncing  upon  the  final 
state  of  any  man  ;  nor  dare  they  pronounce  the  case 
of  Judas  to  be  desperate.  Others  (with  stronger  optics), 
as  plainly  as  with  the  eye  of  flesh,  shall  behold  a  given 
king  in  bliss,  and  a  given  chamberlain  in  torment ;  even 
to  the  eternizing  of  a  cast  of  the  eye  in  the  latter,  his 
own  self-mocked  and  good-humoredly-borne  deformity 
on  earth,  but  supposed  to  aggravate  the  uncouth  and 
hideous  expression  of  his  pangs  in  the  other  place.  That 
one  man  can  presume  so  far,  and  tliat  another  would 
with  shuddering  disclaim  such  confidences,  is,  I  beheve, 
an  effect  of  the  nerves  purely. 

"  If  in  either  of  these  papers,  or  elsewhere,  I  have 
been  betrayed  into  some  levities  —  not  affronting  the 
sanctuary,  but  glancing  perhaps  at  some  of  the  outskirts 
and  extreme  edges,  the  debatable  land  between  the 
holy  and  profane  regions  —  (for  the  admixture  of  man's 
inventions,  twisting  themselves  with  the  name  of  the 
religion  itself,  has  artfully  made  it  difficult  to  touch  even 
the  alloy,  without,  in  some  men's  estimation,  soiling  the 
fine  gold)  —  if  I  have  sported  within  the  purlieus  of 
serious  matter — it  was,  I  dare  say,  a  humor — be  not 
startled,   sir,  which  I  have   unwittingly  derived  from 


ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY.  341 

yourself.  You  have  all  your  life  been  making  a  jest  of 
the  Devil.  Not  of  the  scriptural  meaning  of  that  dark 
essence  —  personal  or  allegorical ;  for  the  nature  is  no- 
where plainly  delivered.  I  acquit  you  of  intentional 
irreverence.  But  indeed  you  have  made  wondei'fiilly 
free  with,  and  been  mighty  pleasant  upon,  the  popular 
idea  and  attributes  of  him.  A  Noble  Lord,  your  brother 
Visionary,  has  scarcely  taken  greater  liberties  with  the 
material  keys,  and  merely  Catholic  notion  of  St.  Peter. 
—  You  have  flattered  him  in  prose :  you  have  chanted 
him  in  goodly  odes.  You  have  been  his  Jester  ;  vol- 
unteer Laureate,  and  self-elected  Court  Poet  to  Beel- 
zebub. 

"  You   have   never   ridiculed,   I  believe,  what  you 
thought  to  be  religion,  but  you  are  always  girdjng  at 
what  some  pious,  but  perhaps  mistaken  folks,  think  to 
be  so.     For  this  reason  I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  you 
are  engaged  upon  a  life  of  George  Fox.     I  know  you 
will  fall  into  the  error  of  intermixing  some  comic  stuff 
with  your  seriousness.     The  Quakers  tremble  at  the 
subject  in  your  hands.     The  Methodists  are  shy  of  you 
upon  account  of  their  founder.     But,  above   all,  our 
Popish  brethren  are  most  in  your  debt.     The  errors  of 
that  Church  have  proved  a  fruitful  source  to  your  scoff- 
ing vein.    Their  Legend  has  been  a  Golden  one  to  you. 
And  here  your  friends,  sir,  have  noticed  a  notable  incon- 
sistency.    To  the  imposing  rites,  the  solemn  penances, 
devout    austerities  of  that   communion  ;    the   affecting 
though  erring  piety  of  their  hermits ;  the  silence  and 
solitude  of  the  Chartreux  —  their  crossings,  their  holy 
waters  —  their  Virgin,  and  their  saints  —  to  these,  they 
say,  you  have  been  indebted  for  the  best  feelings,  and 
the  richest  imagery,  of  your  epic  poetry.     You  have 


342  ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY. 

drawn  copious  drafts  upon  Loretto.  We  thought  at 
one  time  you  were  going  post  to  Rome  —  but  that  in 
the  facetious  commentaries,  which  it  is  your  custom  to 
append  so  plentifully,  and  (some  say)  injudiciously,  to 
your  loftiest  performances  in  this  kind,  you  spurn  the 
uplifted  toe,  which  you  but  just  now  seemed  to  court ; 
leave  his  holiness  in  the  lurch ;  and  show  him  a  fair 
pair  of  Protestant  heels  under  your  Romish  vestment. 
When  we  think  you  already  at  the  wicket,  suddenly  a 
violent  cross  wind  blows  you  transverse  — 

'  Ten  thousand  leagues  awry 


Then  might  we  see 

Cowls,  hoods,  and  habits,  with  their  wearers,  tost 
And  flutter'd  into  rags;  then  reliques,  beads. 
Indulgences,  dispenses,  pardons,  bulls, 
•  The  sport  of  winds.' 

You  pick  up  pence  by  showing  the  hallowed  bones, 
shrine,  and  crucifix  ;  and  you  take  money  a  second 
time  by  exposing  the  trick  of  them  afterwards.  You 
carry  your  verse  to  Castle  Angelo  for  sale  in  a  morn- 
ing ;  and  swifter  than  a  pedler  can  transmute  his  pack, 
you  are  at  Canterbury  with  your  prose  ware  before 
night. 

"  Sir,  is  it  that  I  dislike  you  in  this  merry  vein  ? 
The  very  reverse.  No  countenance  becomes  an  intel- 
ligent jest  better  than  your  own.  It  is  your  grave 
aspect,  when  you  look  awful  upon  your  poor  friends, 
which  I  would  deprecate. 

"  In  more  than  one  place,  if  I  mistake  not,  you  have 
been  pleased  to  compliment  me  at  the  expense  of  my 
companions.  I  cannot  accept  your  compliment  at  such 
a  price.  The  upbraiding  a  man's  poverty  naturally 
makes  him  look  about  him,  to  see  whether  he  be  so 


ELIA  TO  SOUTHEY.  '  343 

poor  indeed  as  he  is  presumed  to  be.  You  have  put 
me  upon  counting  my  riches.  Really,  sir,  I  did  not 
know  I  was  so  wealthy  in  the  article  of  friendships. 

There  is ,  and ,  whom  you  never   heard    of, 

but  exemplary  characters  both,  and  excellent  church- 
goers ;  and  N.,  mine  and  my  father's  friend  for  nearly 
half  a  century  ;   and  the  enthusiast  for  Wordsworth's 

poetry, ,  a  little  tainted  with  Socinianism,  it  is  to  be 

feared,  but  constant  in  his  attachments,  and  a  capital 

critic  ;  and ,  a  sturdy  old  Athanasian,  so  that  sets 

all  to  rights  again  ;  and  W.,  the  light,  and  Avarm- as- 
light  hearted,  Janus  of  the  London  ;  and  the  translator 
of  Dante,  still  a  curate,  modest  and  amiable  C. ;  and 
Allan  C,  the  large-hearted  Scot ;  and  P — r,  candid 
and  affectionate  as  his  own  poetry  ;  and  A — p,  Cole- 
ridge's friend  ;  and  G — n,  his  more  than  friend  ;  and 
Coleridge  himself,  the  same  to  me  still,  as  m  those  old 
evenings,  when  we  used  to  sit  and  speculate  (do  you 
remember  them,  sir  ?)  at  our  old  Salutation  tavern, 
upon  Pantisocracy  and  golden  days  to  come  on  earth  ; 

and  W th   (why,  sir,  I  might  drop  my  rent-roll 

here  ;  such  goodly  farms  and  manors  have  I  reckoned 
up  already.  In  what  possession  has  not  this  last  name 
alone  estated  me!  — but  I  will  go  on) — and  M.,  the 

noble-minded  kinsman,  by  wedlock,  of  W th ;  and 

H.  C.  R.,  unwearied  in  the  offices  of  a  friend;  and 
Clarkson,  almost  above  the  narrowness  of  that  relation, 
yet  condescending  not  seldom  heretofore  from  the 
labors  of  his  world-embracing  charity  to  bless  my  hum- 
ble roof;  and  the  gall-less  and  single-minded  Dyer; 
and  the  high-minded  associate  of  Cook,  the  veteran 
Colonel,  with  his  lusty  heart  still  sending  cartels  of  de- 
fiance to  old  Time ;  and,  not  least,  W.  A.,  the  last  and 


344  ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY. 

steadiest  left  to  me  of  that  little  knot  of  wliist-plajers, 
that  used  to  assemble  weekly,  for  so  many  years,  at  the 
Queen's  Gate  (you  remember  them,  sir?)  and  called 
Admiral  Burney  fi^end, 

"  I  will  come  to  the  point  at  once.  I  believe  you 
will  not  make  many  exceptions  to  my  associates  so  far. 
But  I  have  purposely  omitted  some  intimacies,  which 
I  do  not  yet  repent  of  having  contracted,  with  two 
gentlemen,  diametrically  opposed  to  yourself  in  princi- 
ples. You  will  understand  me  to  allude  to  the  authors 
of '  Rimini '  and  of  the  '  Table  Talk.'  And  first  of  the 
former.' — 

"  It  is  an  error  more  particularly  incident  to  persons 
of  the  correctest  principles  and  habits,  to  seclude  them- 
selves from  the  rest  of  mankind,  as  from  another 
species,  and  form  into  knots  and  clubs.  The  best 
people,  herding  thus  exclusively,  are  in  danger  of  con- 
tracting a  narrowness.  Heat  and  cold,  dryness  and 
moisture,  in  the  natural  world,  do  not  fly  asunder,  to 
split  the  globe  into  sectarian  parts  and  separations  ; 
but  mingling  as  they  best  may,  correct  the  malignity  of 
any  single  predominance.  The  analogy  holds,  I  sup- 
pose, in  the  moral  world.  If  all  the  good  people  were 
to  ship  themselves  off  to  Terra  Incognita,  what,  in 
humanity's  name,  is  to  become  of  the  refuse  ?  If  the 
persons,  whom  I  have  chiefly  in  view,  have  not  pushed 
matters  to  this  extremity  yet,  they  carry  them  as  far  as 
they  can  go.  Instead  of  mixing  with  the  infidel  and 
the  freethinker — in  the  room  of  opening  a  negotiation, 
to  try  at  least  to  find  out  at  which  gate  the  error  en- 
tered—  they  huddle  close  together,  in  a  weak  fear  of 
infection,  like  that  pusillanimous  underling  in  Spen- 
ser— 


ELIA  TO  SOUTHEY.  345 

♦This  is  the  wandering  wood,  this  Error's  den; 
A  monster  vile,  whom  God  and  man  does  hate  : 
Therefore,  I  read,  beware.     Fly,  fly,  quoth  then 
The  fearful  dwarf.' 


And,  if  they  be  writers  in  orthodox  journals — address- 
ing themselves  only  to  the  irritable  passions  of  the 
unbeliever  —  they  proceed  in  a  safe  system  of  strength- 
ening the  strong  hands,  and  confirming  the  valiant 
knees ;  of  converting  the  already  converted,  and  pro- 
selyting their  own  party.  I  am  the  more  convinced  of 
this  from  a  passage  in  the  very  treatise  which  oc- 
casioned this  letter.  It  is  where,  having  recommended 
to  the  doubter  the  writings  of  Michaelis  and  Lardner, 
you  ride  triumphant  over  the  necks  of  all  infidels,  scep- 
tics, and  dissenters,  from  this  time  to  the  world's  end, 
upon  the  wheels  of  two  unanswerable  deductions.  I 
do  not  hold  it  meet  to  set  down,  in  a  miscellaneous 
compilation  like  this,  such  religious  words  as  you  have 
thought  fit  to  introduce  into  the  pages  of  a  petulant 
literary  journal.  I  therefore  beg  leave  to  substitute 
numerals,  and  refer  to  the  '  Quarterly  Review '  (for 
January)  for  filling  of  them  up.  '  Here,'  say  you,  '  as 
in  the  history  of  7,  if  these  books  are  authentic,  the 
events  which  they  relate  must  be  true  ;  if  they  were 
written  by  8,  9  is  10  and  11.'  Your  first  deduction,  if 
it  means  honestly,  rests  upon  two  identical  proposi- 
tions ;  though  I  suspect  an  unfairness  in  one  of  the 
terms,  Avhich  this  would  not  be  quite  the  proper  place 
for  explicating.  At  all  events,  t/ou  have  no  cause  to 
triumph  ;  you  have  not  been  proving  the  premises,  but 
refer  for  satisfaction  therein  to  very  long  and  laborious 
works,  which  may  Avell  employ  the  sceptic  a  twelve- 
month or  two  to  digest,  before  he  can  possibly  be  ripe 


346  ELIA    TO  SOUTHEY. 

for  your  conclusion.  When  he  has  satisfied  himself 
about  the  premises,  he  will  concede  to  you  the  in- 
ference, I  dare  say,  most  readily.  —  But  your  latter  de- 
duction, viz.  that  because  8  has  written  a  book  concern- 
ing 9,  therefore  10  and  11  was  certainly  his  meaning, 
is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  conclusions  joer  saltum, 
that  I  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with.  As 
far  as  10  is  verbally  asserted  in  the  writings,  all  sects 
must  agree  with  you  ;  but  you  cannot  be  ignorant  of 
the  many  various  ways  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the 
*******  has  been  understood,  from  a  low  figurative 
expression  (with  the  Unitarians)  up  to  the  most  mys- 
terious actuality ;  in  which  highest  sense  alone  you  and 
your  church  take  it.  And  for  11,  that  there  is  7io  oth- 
er possible  conclusion  —  to  hazard  this  in  the  face  of  so 
many  thousands  of  Arians  and  Socinians,  &c.,  who 
have  drawn  so  opposite  a  one,  is  such  a  piece  of  theo- 
logical hardihood,  as,  I  think,  warrants  me  in  conclud- 
ing that,  when  you  sit  do^vn  to  pen  theology,  you  do 
not  at  all  consider  your  opponents  ;  but  have  in  your 
eye,  merely  and  exclusively,  readers  of  the  same  way 
of  thinking  with  yourself,  and  therefore  have  no  occa- 
sion to  trouble  yourself  with  the  quality  of  the  logic  to 
which  you  treat  them.  • 

"  Neither  can  I  think,  if  you  had  had  the  welfare  of 
the  poor  child  —  over  whose  hopeless  condition  you 
whine  so  lamentably  and  (I  must  think)  unseasonably 
—  seriously  at  heart,  that  you  could  have  taken  the 
step  of  sticking  him  up  b^/  name  —  T.  H.  is  as  good  as 
nayning  him  —  to  perpetuate  an  outrage  upon  the  pa- 
rental feelings,  as  long  as  the  '  Quarterly  Review '  shall 
last.  Was  it  necessary  to  specify  an  individual  case, 
and  give  to  Christian   compassion  the  appearance  of 


ELIA   TO    SOUTHEY.  347 

personal  attack  ?  Is  this  the  way  to  conciliate  unbe- 
lievers, or  not  rather  to  widen  the  breach  irreparably  ? 

"  I  own  I  could  never  think  so  considerably  of  my- 
self as  to  decline  the  society  of  an  agreeable  or  worthy 
man  upon  difference  of  opinion  only.  The  impediments 
and  the  facilitations  to  a  sound  belief  are  various  and 
inscrutable  as  the  heart  of  man.  Some  believe  upon 
weak  principles.  Others  cannot  feel  the  efficacy  of  the 
strongest.  One  of  the  most  candid,  most  upright,  and 
single-meaning  men,  I  ever  knew,  was  the  late  Thomas 
Holcroft.  I  believe  he  never  said  one  thing  and  meant 
another,  in  his  life  ;  and,  as  near  as  I  can  guess,  he 
never  acted  otherwise  than  with  the  most  scrupulous 
attention  to  conscience.  Ought  we  to  wish  the  char- 
acter false,  for  the  sake  of  a  hollow  comphment  to 
Christianity  ? 

"  Accident  introduced  me  to  the  acquaintance  of  Mr. 
L.  H.  —  and  the  experience  of  his  many  friendly  qual- 
ities confirmed  a  friendship  between  us.  You,  who 
have  been  misrepresented  yourself,  I  should  hope,  have 
not  lent  an  idle  ear  to  the  calumnies  which  have  been 
spread  abroad  respecting  this  gentleman.  I  was  ad- 
mitted to  his  household  for  some  years,  and  do  most 
solemnly  aver  that  I  believe  him  to  be  in  his  domestic 
relations  as  correct  as  any  man.  He  chose  an  ill-judged 
subject  for  a  poem ;  the  peccant  humors  of  which 
have  been  visited  on  him  tenfold  by  the  artful  use,  which 
his  adversaries  have  made,  of  an  equivocal  term.  The 
subject  itself  was  started  by  Dante,  but  better  because 
brieflier  treated  of.  But  the  crime  of  the  lovers,  in  the 
Italian  and  the  English  poet,  with  its  aggravated  enor- 
mity of  circumstance,  is  not  of  a  kind  (as  the  critics  of 
the  latter  well  knew)  with  those  conjunctions,  for  which 


348  ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY. 

-Nature   herself  has   provided   no   excuse,  because   no 
temptation.  —  It  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  black 
horrors,  sung  by  Ford  and  Massinger.     The  famihar- 
izing  of  it  in  tale  or  fable  may  be  for  that  reason  inci- 
dentally more  contagious.     In  spite  of  '  Rimini,'  I  must 
look  upon  its  author  as  a  man  of  taste,  and  a  poet.     He 
is  better  than  so ;  he  is  one  of  the  most  cordial-minded 
men  I  ever  knew,  and  matchless  as  a  fireside  compan- 
ion.    I  mean  not  to  affront  or  wound   your  feelings 
when  I  say  that,  in  his  more  genial  moods,  he  has  often 
reminded  me  of  you.     There  is  the  same  air  of  mild 
dogmatism  —  the  same  condescending  to  a  boyish  sport- 
iveness  —  in  both  your  conversations.     His  handwrit- 
ing is  so  much  the  same  with  your  own,  that  I  have 
opened  more  than  one  letter  of  his,  hoping,  nay,  not 
doubting,  but  it  was  from  you,  and  have  been  disap- 
pointed (he  will  bear  with  my  saying  so)  at  the  dis- 
covery of  my  error.     L.  H.  is  unfortunate  in  holding 
some  loose  and  not  very  definite  speculations   (for  at 
times  I  think  he  hardly  knows  whither  his  premises 
would  carry  him)  on  marriage  —  the  tenets,  I  conceive, 
of  the  '  Political  Justice  '  carried  a  little  further.     For 
anything  I  could   discover  in  his  practice,  they  have 
reference,  like  those,  to  some  future  possible  condition 
of  society,  and  not  to  the  present  times.     But  neither 
for  these  obliquities  of  thinking  (upon  which  my  own 
conclusions  are  as  distant  as  the  poles  asunder)  —  nor 
for  his  political  asperities  and  petulancies,  which  are 
wearing  out  with  the  heats  and  vanities  of  youth  — 
did  I  select  him  for  a  friend  ;   but  for  qualities  which 
fitted  him  for  that  relation.     I  do  not  know  whether 
I  flatter  myself  with  being  the  occasion,  but  certain  it 
is,  that,  touched  with  some  misgivings  for  sundry  harsh 


ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY.  349 

things  wliicli  lie  had  written  aforetime  against  our  friend 
C,  —  before  he  left  this  country  he  sought  a  reconcili- 
ation with  that  gentleman  (himself  being  liis  own  intro- 
ducer), and  found  it. 

"  L.  H.  is  now  in  Italy ;  on  his  departure  to  which 
land  with  much  regret  I  took  my  leave  of  him  and  of  his 
little  family  —  seven  of  them,  sir,  with  their  mother  — 
and  as  kind  a  set  of  little  people  (T.  H.  and  all),  as 
affectionate  children  as  ever  blessed  a  parent.  Had 
you  seen  them,  sir,  I  think  you  could  not  have  looked 
upon  them  as  so  many  little  Jonases  —  but  rather  as 
pledges  of  the  vessel's  safety,  that  was  to  bear  such  a 
freight  of  love. 

"  I  wish  you  would  read  Mr.  H.'s  lines  to  that  same 
T.  H.  '  six  years  old  during  a  sickness : '  — 

'  Sleep  breaks  at  last  from  out  thee, 
My  little  patient  boy  '  — 

(they  are  to  be  found  in  the  47th  page  of '  Foliage ')  — 
and  ask  yourself  how  far  they  are  out  of  the  spirit  of 
Christianity.  I  have  a  letter  from  Italy,  received  but 
the  other  day,  into  which  L.  H.  has  put  as  much  heart, 
and  as  many  friendly  yearnings  after  old  associates,  and 
native  country,  as,  I  think,  paper  can  well  hold.  It 
would  do  you  no  hurt  to  give  that  the  perusal  also. 

"  From  the  other  gentleman  I  neither  expect  nor  de- 
sire (as  he  is  well  assured)  any  such  concessions  as 
L.  H.  made  to  C.  What  hath  soured  him,  and  made 
him  to  suspect  his  friends  of  infidelity  towards  him, 
when  there  was  no  such  matter,  I  know  not.  I  stood 
well  with  him  for  fifteen  years  (the  proudest  of  my 
life),  and  have  ever  spoken  my  full  mind  of  him  to 
some,  to  whom  his  panegyric  must  naturally  be  least 


350  ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY. 

tasteful.  I  never  in  thought  swerved  from  him,  I  never 
betrayed  him,  I  never  slackened  in  my  admiration  of 
him ;  I  was  the  same  to  him  (neither  better  nor  worse), 
though  he  could  not  see  it,  as  in  the  days  when  he 
thought  fit  to  ti'ust  me.  At  this  instant,  he  may  be 
preparing  for  me  some  compliment,  above  my  deserts, 
as  he  has  sprinkled  many  such  among  his  admirable 
books,  for  which  I  rest  his  debtor  ;  or,  for  anything  I 
know,  or  can  guess  to  the  contrary,  he  may  be  about 
to  read  a  lecture  on  my  weaknesses.  He  is  welcome 
to  them  (as  he  was  to  my  humble  hearth),  if  they  can 
divert  a  spleen,  or  ventilate  a  fit  of  sullenness.  I  wish 
he  would  not  quarrel  with  the  world  at  the  rate  he  does  ; 
but  the  reconciliation  must  be  effected  by  himself,  and 
I  despair  of  living  to  see  that  day.  But,  protesting 
against  much  that  he  has  written,  and  some  things 
which  he  chooses  to  do  ;  judging  him  by  his  conver- 
sation which  I  enjoyed  so  long,  and  relished  so  deeply ; 
or  by  his  books,  in  those  places  where  no  clouding  pas- 
sion intervenes  —  I  should  belie  my  own  conscience,  if 
I  said  less,  than  that  I  think  W.  H.  to  be,  in  his  natural 
and  healthy  state,  one  of  the  wisest  and  finest  spirits 
breatliing.  So  far  from  being  ashamed  of  that  intimacy, 
which  was  betwixt  us,  it  is  my  boast  that  I  was  able 
for  so  many  years  to  have  preserved  it  entire ;  and  I 
think  I  shall  go  to  my  grave  without  finding,  or  expect- 
ing to  find,  such  another  companion.  But  I  forget  my 
manners  —  you  will  pardon  me,  sir  —  I  return  to  the 
correspondence. 

"  Sir,  you  were  pleased  (you  know  where)  to  invite 
me  to  a  compliance  with  the  wholesome  forms  and  doc- 
trines of  the  Church  of  England.  I  take  your  advice 
with  as  much  kindness  as  it  was  meant.     But  I  must 


ELIA  TO   SOUTHEY.  351 

think  the  invitation  rather  more  kind  than  seasonable. 

•  

I  am  a  Dissenter.  The  last  sect,  with  which  you  can 
remember  me  to  have  made  common  profession,  were 
the  Unitarians.  You  would  think  it  not  very  pertinent, 
if  (fearing  that  all  was  not  well  with  you),  I  were 
gravely  to  invite  you  (for  a  remedy)  to  attend  with  me 
a  com'se  of  Mr.  Belsham's  Lectures  at  Hackney.  Per- 
haps I  have  scruples  to  some  of  your  forms  and  doc- 
trines. But  if  I  come  am  I  secure  of  civil  treatment  ? 
The  last  time  I  was  in  any  of  your  places  of  worship 
was  on  Easter  Sunday  last.  I  had  the  satisfaction  of 
listenmcp  to  a  verv  sensible  sermon  of  an  argumentative 
turn,  delivered  with  great  propriety,  by  one  of  your 
bishops.  The  place  was  Westminster  Abbey.  As  such 
religion,  as  I  have,  has  always  acted  on  me  more  by  way 
of  sentiment  than  argumentative  process,  I  was  not  un- 
willing, after  sermon  ended,  by  no  unbecoming  transi- 
tion, to  pass  over  to  some  serious  feelings,  impossible  to 
be  disconnected  from  the  sight  of  those  old  tombs,  &c. 
But  by  whose  order,  I  know  not,  I  was  debarred  that 
privilege,  even  for  so  short  a  space  as  a  few  minutes  ; 
and  turned,  like  a  dog  or  some  profane  person,  out  into 
the  common  street ;  with  feelings,  which  I  could  not 
help,  but  not  very  congenial  to  the  day  or  the  discourse. 
I  do  not  know  that  I  shall  ever  venture  myself  again  into 
one  of  your  churches. 

"  You  had  your  education  at  Westminster ;  and, 
doubtless,  among  those  dim  aisles  and  cloisters,  you 
must  have  gathered  much  of  that  devotional  feeling  in 
those  young  years,  on  which  your  purest  mind  feeds 
still  —  and  may  it  feed  !  The  antiquarian  spirit,  strong 
in  you,  and  graceftilly  blending  ever  with  the  religious, 
may  have  been  sown  in  you  among  those  wrecks  of 


352  ELIA   TO    SOUTHEY. 

splendid  mortality.  You  owe  it  to  the  place  of  your 
education  ;  you  owe  it  to  your  learned  fondness  For  the 
architecture  of  your  ancestors  ;  you  owe  it  to  the  ven- 
erableness  of  your  ecclesiastical  establishment,  which  is 
daily  lessened  and  called  in  question  through  these  prac- 
tices —  to  speak  aloud  your  sense  of  them  ;  never  to 
desist  raismg  your  voice  against  them,  till  they  be  totally 
done  away  with  and  abolished  ;  till  the  doors  of  West- 
minster Abbey  be  no  longer  closed  against  the  decent, 
though  low-in-purse,  enthusiast,  or  blameless  devotee, 
who  must  commit  an  injury  against  his  family  economy, 
if  he  would  be  indulged  with  a  bare  admission  within  its 
walls.  You  owe  it  to  the  decencies,  which  you  wish  to 
see  maintained  in  its  impressive  services,  that  our  Cathe- 
dral be  no  longer  an  object  of  inspection  to  the  poor  at 
those  times  only,  in  which  they  must  rob  from  their 
attendance  on  the  worship  every  minute  which  they  can 
bestow  upon  the  fabric.  In  vain  the  public  prints  have 
taken  up  this  subject,  in  vain  such  poor  nameless  writers 
as  myself  express  their  indignation.  A  word  from  you, 
sir  —  a  hint  in  your  journal  —  would  be  sufficient  to 
fling  open  the  doors  of  the  beautiful  temple  again,  as  we 
can  remember  them  when  we  were  boys.  At  that  time 
of  life,  what  would  the  imaginative  faculty  (such  as  it 
is)  in  both  of  us,  have  suffered,  if  the  entrance  to  so 
much  reflection  had  been  obstructed  by  the  demand  of 
so  much  silver  !  —  If  we  had  scraped  it  up  to  gain 
an  occasional  admission  (as  we  certainly  should  have 
done)  would  the  sight  of  those  old  tombs  have  been  as 
impressive  to  us  (while  we  had  been  weigliing  anxiously 
prudence  against  sentiment)  as  when  the  gates  stood 
open,  as  those  of  the  adjacent  Park  ;  when  we  could 
walk  in  at  any  time,  as  the  mood  brought  us,  for  a 


ELIA  TO  SOUTHEY.  353 

shorter  or  longer  time,  as  that  lasted  ?  Is  tlie  being 
shown  over  a  place  the  same  as  silently  for  ourselves 
detecting  the  genius  of  it  ?  In  no  part  of  our  beloved 
Abbey  now  can  a  person  find  entrance  (out  of  service- 
time)  under  the  sum  of  two  shillings.  The  rich  and 
the  great  will  smile  at  the  anticlimax,  presumed  to  he 
in  these  two  short  words.  But  you  can  tell  them,  sir, 
how  much  quiet  worth,  how  much  capacity  for  enlarged 
feeling,  how  much  taste  and  genius,  may  coexist,  espe- 
cially in  youth,  with  a  purse  incompetent  to  this  demand. 
—  A  respected  friend  of  ours,,  during  his  late  visit  to  the 
metropolis,  presented  liimself  for  admission  to  St.  Paul's. 
At  the  same  time  a  decently-clothed  man,  with  as  decent 
a  wife,  and  child,  were  bargaining  for  the  same  indul- 
gence. The  price  was  only  twopence  each  person. 
The  poor  but  decent  man  hesitated,  desirous  to  go  in ; 
but  there  were  three  of  them,  and  he  turned  away  re- 
luctantly. Perhaps  he  wished  to  have  seen  the  tomb 
of  Nelson.  Perhaps  the  interior  of  the  cathedral  was 
his  object.  But  in  the  state  of  his  finances,  even  six- 
pence might  reasonably  seem  too  much.  Tell  the 
aristocracy  of  the  country  (no  man  can  do  it  more  im- 
pressively) ;  instruct  them  of  what  value  these  insignifi- 
cant pieces  of  money,  these  minims  to  their  sight,  may 
be  to  their  humbler  brethren.  Shame  these  sellers  out 
of  the  Temple  !  Show  the  poor,  that  you  can  some- 
times think  of  them  in  some  other  light  than  as  muti- 
neers and  malcontents.  Conciliate  them  by  such  kind 
methods  to  their  superiors,  civil  and  ecclesiastical.  Stop 
the  mouths  of  the  railers ;  and  suffer  your  old  friends, 
upon  the  old  terms,  again  to  honor  and  admire  you. 
Stifle  not  the  suggestions  of  your  better  nature  with  the 
stale  evasion,  that  an  indiscriminate  admission  would 

VOL.   I.  23 


354  ELIA  TO  SOUTHEY. 

expose  the  tombs  to  violation.  Remember  your  boy- 
days.  Did  you  ever  see,  or  hear,  of  a  mob  in  the 
Abbey,  while  it  was  free  to  all  ?  Do  the  rabble  come 
there,  or  trouble  their  heads  about  such  speculations? 
It  is  all  that  you  can  do  to  drive  them  into  your 
churches ;  they  do  not  voluntarily  offer  themselves. 
They  have,  alas  !  no  passion  for  antiquities  ;  for  tomb 
of  king  or  prelate,  sage  or  poet.  If  they  had,  they 
would  no  longer  be  the  rabble. 

"  For  forty  years  that  I  have  known  the  fabric,  the 
only  well-attested  charge  of  violation  adduced,  has  been 
—  a  ridiculous  dismemberment  committed  upon  the 
effigy  of  that  amiable  spy.  Major  Andr^.  And  is  it  for 
this  —  the  wanton  mischief  of  some  schoolboy,  fired 
perhaps  with  raw  notions  of  transatlantic  freedom  —  or 
the  remote  possibihty  of  such  a  mischief  occurring  again, 
so  easily  to  be  prevented  by  stationing  a  constable  within 
the  walls,  if  the  vergers  are  incompetent  to  the  duty  — 
is  it  upon  such  wretched  pretences,  that  the  people  of 
England  are  made  to  pay  a  new  Peter's  pence,  so  long 
abrogated ;  or  must  content  themselves  with  contem- 
plating the  ragged  exterior  of  their  Cathedral  ?  The 
mischief  was  done  about  the  time  that  you  were  a  scholar 
there.  Do  you  know  anything  about  the  unfortunate 
relic  ?  —  can  you  help  us  in  this  emergency  to  find  the 
nose  ?  —  or  can  you  give  Chantrey  a  notion  (from  mem- 
ory) of  its  pristine  life  and  vigor  ?  I  am  willing  for 
peace'  sake  to  subscribe  my  guinea  towards  a  restoration 
of  the  lamented  feature. 

"  I  am,  sir,  your  humble  servant, 

"  Elia." 

The  feeling  with  which  this  letter  was  received  by 


LETTER    TO    SOUTHEY.  355 

Soutliey  may  be  best  described  in  his  own  words  in  a 
letter  to  the  pubHsher.  "  On  my  part  there  was  not 
even  a  momentary  feehng  of  anger ;  I  was  very  much 
surprised  and  grieved,  because  I  knew  how  much  he 
would  condemn  himself.  And  yet  no  resentful  letter 
was  ever  written  less  offensively :  his  gentle  nature 
may  be  seen  in  it  throughout."  Southey  was  riglit  in 
his  belief  in  the  revulsion  Lamb's  feelings  would  un- 
dergo, when  the  excitement  under  which  he  had  writ- 
ten subsided  ;  for  although  he  would  retract  nothing  he 
had  ever  said  or  written  in  defence  of  his  friends,  he 
was  ready  at  once  to  surrender  every  resentment  of  his 
own.  Southey  came  to  London  in  the  following 
month,  and  wrote  proposing  to  call  at  Islington  ;  and 
21st  of  November  Lamb  thus  replied  :  — 


TO  ME.  SOUTHEY. 

'•  E.  I.  H.,  21st  November,  1823. 

"  Dear  Southey,  —  The  kindness  of  your  note  has 
melted  away  the  mist  which  was  upon  me.  I  have 
been  fighting  against  a  shadow.  That  accursed  '  Q.  R.' 
had  vexed  me  by  a  gratuitous    speaking,  of  its  own 

knowledge,  that  the  '  Confessions  of  a  D d '  was 

a  genuine  description  of  the  state  of  the  writer.  Lit- 
tle things,  that  are  not  ill  meant,  may  produce  much 
ill.  That  might  have  injured  me  alive  and  dead.  I 
am  in  a  public  office,  and  my  life  is  insured.  I  was 
prepared  for  anger,  and  I  thought  I  saw,  in  a  few  ob- 
noxious words,  a  hard  case  of  repetition  directed  against 
me.  I  wish  both  magazine  and  review  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea.     I  shall  be  ashamed  to  see  you,   and  my 


356  LETTER  TO  BARTON. 

sister  (though  innocent)  will  be  still  more  so  ;  for  the 
folly  was  done  without  her  knowledge,  and  has  made 
her  uneasy  ever  since.  My  guardian  angel  was  absent 
at  that  time. 

"  I  will  muster  up  courage  to  see  you,  however,  any 
day  next  week  (Wednesday  excepted).  We  shall 
hope  that  you  will  bring  Edith  with  you.  That  will 
be  a  second  mortification.  She  will  hate  to  see  us,  but 
come  and  heap  embers.  We  deserve  it,  I  for  what 
I've  done,  and  she  for  being  my  sister. 

"  Do  come  early  in  the  day,  by  sunlight,  that  you 
may  see  my  Milton. 

"  I  am  at  Colebrook-cottage,  Colebrook-row,  Isling- 
ton. A  detached  whitish  house,  close  to  the  New 
River,  end  of  Colebrook  Terrace,  left  hand  from  Sad- 
ler's Wells. 

"  Will  you  let  me  know  the  day  before  ? 

"  Yoiir  penitent,  C.  Lamb." 

«  p_  g_ — J  (Jo  not  think  yom'  hand-writing  at  all 
like  ****'s.     I  do  not  think  many  things  I  did  think." 

In  the  following  letter,  of  the  same  date,  Lamb  an- 
ticipates the  meeting. 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  I  am  ashamed  at  not  acknowledg- 
ing your  kind,  little  poem,  which  I  must  needs  like 
much  ;  but  I  protest  I  thought  I  had  done  it  at  tlie 
moment.  Is  it  possible  a  letter  has  miscarried  ?  Did 
you  get  one  in  which  I  sent  you  an  extract  from  the 
poems  of  Lord  Sterling  ?     I  should  wonder  if  you  did, 


LETTER  TO  BARTON.  357 

for  I  sent  you  none  such.  There  was  an  incipient  lie 
strangled  in  the  birth.  Some  people's  conscience  is  so 
tender !  But  in  plain  truth,  I  thank  you  very  much 
for  the  verses.  I  have  a  very  kind  letter  from  the 
Laureat,  with  a  self-invitation  to  come  and  shake  hands 
with  me.  This  is  truly  handsome  and  noble.  'Tis 
worthy  of  my  old  idea  of  Southey.  Shall  not  I,  think 
you,  be  covered  with  a  red  suffusion  ? 

"  You  are  too  much  apprehensive  of  your  complaint: 
I  know  many  that  are  always  ailing  of  it,  and  live  on 
to  a  good  old  age.  I  know  a  merry  fellow  (you  partly 
know  him)  who,  when  his  medical  adviser  told  him  he 
had  drunk  away  all  that  part,  congratulated  himself 
(now  his  liver  was  gone)  that  he  should  be  the  longest 
liver  of  the  two. 

"  The  best  way  in  these  cases  is  to  keep  yourself  as 
ignorant  as    you  can,   as  ignorant  as  the  world  was 
before  Galen,  of  the  entire  inner  construction  of  the 
animal  man  ;  not  to  be  conscious  of  a  midriff ;  to  hold 
kidneys  (save  of  sheep  and  swine)  to  be  an  agreeable 
fiction  ;  not  to  know  whereabouts  the  gall  grows ;  to 
account  the  circulation  of  the  blood  an  idle  whimsey  of 
Harvey's  ;  to  acknowledge  no  mechanism  not  visible. 
For,  once  fix  the  seat  of  your  disorder,  and  your  fan- 
cies flux  into    it  like  bad  humors.      Those    medical 
gentries  choose  each  his  favorite  part ;  one  takes  the 
lungs,  another  the  aforesaid  liver,  and  refer  to  that, 
whatever  in  the  animal  economy  is  amiss.     Above  all, 
use  exercise,  take  a  little  more  spirituous  liquors,  learn 
to  smoke,  continue  to  keep  a  good  conscience,  and  avoid 
tampering   with   hard    terms  of   art  —  viscosity,    scir- 
rhosity,  and  tliose  bugbears  by  which  simple  patients 
are  scared  into  their  grave.     Believe  the  general  sense 


358  LETTER  TO  BARTON. 

of  the  mercantile  world,  which  holds  that  desks  are 
not  deadly.  It  is  the  mind,  good  B.  B.,  and  not  the 
limbs,  that  taints  by  long  sitting.  Think  of  the 
patience  of  tailors,  think  how  long  the  Lord  Chancellor 
sits,  think  of  the  brooding  hen  !  I  protest  I  cannot 
answer  thy  sister's  kind  inquiry  ;  but  I  judge,  I  shall 
put  forth  no  second  volume.  More  praise  than  buy ; 
and  T.  and  H.  are  not  particularly  disposed  for  mar- 
tyrs. Thou  wilt  see  a  funny  passage,  and  yet  a  true 
history,  of  George  Dyer's  aquatic  incursion  in  the  next 
'  London.'  Beware  his  fate,  when  thou  com  est  to  see 
me  at  my  Colebrook-cottage.  I  have  filled  my  little 
space  with  my  little  thoughts.  I  wish  thee  ease  on  thy 
sofa  ;  but  not  too  much  indulgence  on  it.  From  my 
poor  desk,  thy  fellow-sufferer,  this  bright  November, 

"  C.  L." 

Southey  went  to  Colebrook-cottage,  as  proposed ; 
the  awkwardness  of  meeting  went  off  in  a  moment ; 
and  the  affectionate  intimacy,  which  had  lasted  for 
almost  twenty  years,  was  renewed,  to  be  interrupted 
only  by  death. 


LETTERS  TO  AmSWORTH,  BARTON,  AND  COLERIDGE.  359 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

[1823  to  1825.] 

LETTERS   TO    AINSWORTH,   BARTON,   AND   COLERIDGE. 

Lamb  was  fond  of  visiting  the  Universities  in  the 
summer  vacation,  and  repeatedly  spent  his  hoKday  month 
at  Cambridcre  with  his  sister.     On  one  of  these  occa- 
sions  they  met  with  a  httle  girl,  who  being  in  a  manner 
alone  in  the  world,  engaged  their  sympathy,  and  soon 
riveted  their  affections.     Emma  Isola  was  the  daughter 
of  Mr.  Charles  Isola,  who  had  been  one  of  the  esquire 
bedells  of  the  University  ;  her  grandfather,  Agostino 
Isola,  had  been  compelled  to  fly  from  Milan,  because  a 
friend  took  up  an  Enghsh  book  in  his  apartment,  which 
he  had  carelessly  left  in  view.     This  good  old  man  num- 
bered among  his  pupils.  Gray  the  poet,  Mr.  Pitt,  and, 
in  his  old  age,  Wordsworth,  whom  he  instructed  in  the 
Italian   language.      His  little   grand-daughter,   at   the 
time  when  she  had  the  good  fortune  to  win  the  regard 
of  Mr.  Lamb,  had  lost  both  her  parents,  and  was  spend- 
ing her  hohdays  with  an  aunt,  who  lived  with  a  sister 
of  Mr.  Ayrton,  at  whose  house  Lamb  generally  played 
his  evening  rubber  during  his  stay  at  Cambridge.    The 
liking  which  both  Lamb  and  his  sister  took  for  the  little 
orphan,  led  to  their  begging  her  of  her  aunt  for  the 
next  holidays  ;  their  regard  for  her  increased  ;  she  reg- 
ularly spent  the  holidays  with  them  till  she  left  school, 
and  afterwards  was  adopted  as  a  daughter,  and  lived 
generally  with  them  until  1833,  when  she  married  Mr. 
Moxon.     Lamb  was  fond  of  taking  long  walks  in  the 
country,  and  as  Miss  Lamb's  strength  was  not  always 


360  LETTERS  TO  AINSWORTH. 

equal  to  these  pedestrian  excursions,  she  became  his 
constant  companion  in  walks  which  even  extended  "  to 
the  green  fields  of  pleasant  Hertfordshire." 

About  this  time,  Lamb  added  to  his  hst  of  fi-iends, 
Mr.  Hood,  the  delightful  humorist ;  Hone,  lifted  for  a 
short  time  into  political  fame  by  the  prosecution  of  his 
Parodies,  and  the  signal  energy  and  success  of  his  de- 
fence, but  now  striving  by  unwearied  researches,  which 
were  guided  by  a  pure  taste  and  an  honest  heart,  to 
support  a  numerous  family ;  and  Ainsworth,  then  a 
youth,  who  has  since  acquired  so  splendid  a  reputation 
as  the  author  of  "  Rookwood  "  and  "  Crichton."  Mr. 
Ainsworth,  then  resident  at  Manchester,  excited  by  an 
enthusiastic  admiration  of  Elia,  had  sent  him  some 
books,  for  which  he  thus  conveyed  his  thanks  to  his 
unseen  friend. 

TO  MR.   AINSWORTH. 

"  India  House,  9th  Dec.  1823. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  I  should  have  thanked  you  for  your 
books  and  compliments  sooner,  but  have  been  waiting 
for  a  revise  to  be  sent,  which  does  not  come,  though  I 
returned  the  proof  on  the  receipt  of  your  letter.  I 
have  read  Warner  with  great  pleasure.  What  an  elab- 
orate piece  of  alliteration  and  antithesis  !  why  it  must 
have  been  a  labor  far  above  the  most  difficult  versifi- 
cation. There  is  a  fine  simile  or  picture  of  Semiramis 
arming  to  repel  a  siege.  I  do  not  mean  to  keep  the 
book,  for  I  suspect  you  are  forming  a  curious  collection, 
and  I  do  not  pretend  to  anything  of  the  kind.  I  have 
not  a  black-letter  book  among  mine,  old  Chaucer  ex- 
cepted, and  am  not  bibliomanist  enough  to  hke  black- 


LETTERS  TO  AINSWORTH.  361 

letter.  It  is  painful  to  read  ;  therefore  I  must  insist  on 
returnino-  it  at  opportunity,  not  from  contumacy  and 
reluctance  to  be  obliged,  but  because  it  must  suit  you 
better  than  me.  The  loss  of  a  present  from  should 
never  exceed  the  gain  of  a  present  to.  I  hold  this 
maxim  infalHble  in  the  accepting  line.  —  I  read  your 
magazines  with  satisfaction.  I  thoroughly  agree  with 
you  as  to  '  The  German  Faust,'  as  far  as  I  can  do 
justice  to  it  from  an  English  translation.  'Tis  a  dis- 
agreeable canting  tale  of  seduction,  which  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  spirit  of  Faustus  —  Curiosity.  Was  the 
dark  secret  to  be  explored,  to  end  in  the  seducing  of  a 
weak  girl,  which  might  have  been  accomplished  by 
earthly  agency  ?  When  Marlow  gives  Ms  Faustus  a 
mistress,  he  flies  him  at  Helen,  flower  of  Greece,  to  be 
sure,  and  not  at  Miss  Betsy,  or  Miss  Sally  Thoughtless. 

'  Cut  is  the  branch  that  bore  the  goodly  fruit, 
And  wither'd  is  Apollo's  laurel  tree: 
Faustus  is  dead.' 

"What  a  noble  natural  transition  from  metaphor 
to  plain  speaking  !  as  if  the  figurative  had  flagged  in 
desci'iption  of  such  a  loss,  and  was  reduced  to  tell  the 
fact  simply. 

"  I  must  now  thank  you  for  your  very  kind  invita- 
tion. It  is  not  out  of  prospect  that  I  may  see  Man- 
chester some  day,  and  then  I  will  avail  myself  of  your 
kindness.  But  holidays  are  scarce  things  with  me, 
and  the  laws  of  attendance  are  getting  stronger  and 
strono-er  at  Leadenhall.  But  I  shall  bear  it  in  mind. 
Meantime,  something  may  (more  probably)  bring  you 
to  town,  where  I  shall  be  happy  to  see  you.  I  am 
always  to  be  found  (alas !)  at  my  desk  in  the  forepart 
of  the  day. 


362  LETTERS   TO  AINSWORTH. 

"  I  wonder  why  they  do  not  send  the  revise.  I  leave 
late  at  office,  and  my  abode  lies  out  of  the  way,  or  I 
should  have  seen  about  it.  If  you  are  impatient,  per- 
haps a  line  to  the  printer,  directing  him  to  send  it  me, 
at  Accountant's  Office,  may  answer.  You  will  see  by 
the  scrawl  that  I  only  snatch  a  few  minutes  from  inter- 
mittino;  business. 

"  Your  obliged  servant,  C.   Lamb." 

"  (If  I  had  time  I  would  go  over  this  letter  again, 
and  dot  all  my  i's.)  " 

To  Ainsworth,  still  pressing  him  to  visit  Manchester, 
he  sent  the  following  reply. 


TO    MR.    AINSWORTH. 

"  I.  H.,  Dec.  29th,  1823. 

"  My  dear  sir,  —  You  talk  of  months  at  a  time,  and 
I  know  not  what  inducements  to  visit  Manchester, 
Heaven  knows  how  gratifying !  but  I  have  had  my 
little  month  of  1823  already.  It  is  all  over,  and  with- 
out incurring  a  disagreeable  fxvor,  I  cannot  so  much  as 
get  a  single  holiday  till  the  season  returns  with  the  next 
year.  Even  our  half-hour's  absences  from  office  are 
set  down  in  a  book !  Next  year,  if  I  can  spare  a  day 
or  two  of  it,  I  will  come  to  Manchester,  but  I  have 
reasons  at  home  against  longer  absences. 

"  I  am  so  ill  just  at  present  —  (an  illness  of  my  own 
procuring  last  night ;  who  is  perfect  ?)  —  that  nothing 
but  your  very  great  kindness  could  make  me  write. 
I  will  bear  in  mind  the  letter  to  W.  W.,  and  you  shall 
have  it  quite  in  time,  before  the  12th. 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  363 

"  My  aching  and  confused  head  warns  me  to  leave 
off.  With  a  muddled  sense  of  gratefulness,  which  I 
shall  apprehend  more  clearly  to-morrow  I  remain, 
your  friend  unseen,  "  C.  L." 

"  Will  your  occasions  or  inclination  bring  you  to 
London  ?  It  will  give  me  great  pleasure  to  show  you 
everything  that  Ishngton  can  boast,  if  you  know  the 
meaning  of  that  very  Cockney  sound.  We  have  the 
New  River !  I  am  ashamed  of  this  scrawl,  but  I 
beg  you  to  accept  it  for  the  present.  I  am  full  of 
qualms. 

'  A  fool  at  fifty  is  a  fool  indeed.'  " 

Bernard  Barton  still  frequently  wrote  to  him  ;  and 
he  did  not  withhold  the  wished-for  reply  even  when 
letter-writing  was  a  burden.  The  following  gives  a 
ludicrous  account  of  his  indisposition  :  — 


o 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  Jan.  9th,  1824. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  succumb 
under  an  insurmountable  day-mare  —  '  a  whoreson 
lethargy,'  Falstaff  calls  it,  —  an  indisposition  to  do 
anything  or  to  be  anything, — a  total  deadness  and  dis- 
taste,—  a  suspension  of  vitality,  —  an  indifference  to 
locality,  —  a  numb,  soporifical  good-for-nothingness, — 
an  ossification  all  over,  —  an  oyster-like  insensibility  to 
the  passing  events,  —  a  mind-stupor,  —  a  brawny  defi 
ance  to  the  needles  of  a  thrustincr-in  conscience  ?  Did 
you  ever  have  a  very  bad  cold,  with  a  total  irresolution 
to  submit  to  water-gruel  processes  ?     Tliis  has  been  for 


364  LETTERS   TO  BARTON. 

many  weeks  my  lot,  and  my  excuse ;  my  fingers  drag 
heavily  over  this  paper,  and  to  my  thinking  it  is  three- 
and-twenty  furlongs  from  here  to  the  end  of  this  demi- 
sheet.  I  have  not  a  thing  to  say  ;  nothing  is  of  more 
importance  than  another ;  I  am  flatter  than  a  denial  or 

a  pancake ;  emptier  than  Judge 's  wig  when   the 

head  is  in  it;  duller  than  a  country  stage  when  the 
actors  are  off  it ;  a  cipher,  an  0  !  I  acknowledge  life 
at  all,  only  by  an  occasional  convulsional  cough,  and 
a  permanent  phlegmatic  pain  in  the  chest.  I  am 
weary  of  the  world ;  life  is  weary  of  me.  My  day 
is  gone  into  twilight,  and  I  don't  think  it  worth  the 
expense  of  candles.  My  wick  hath  a  thief  in  it,  but  I 
can't  muster  courage  to  snuff  it.  I  inhale  suflFocation  ; 
I  can't  distinguish  veal  from  mutton  ;  nothing  interests 
me.  'Tis  twelve  o'clock,  and  Thurtell  is  just  now 
coming  out  upon  the  New  Drop,  Jack  Ketch  alertly 
tucking  up  his  greasy  sleeves  to  do  the  last  office  of 
mortality,  yet  cannot  I  elicit  a  groan  or  a  moral  reflec- 
tion. If  you  told  me  the  world  will  be  at  an  end  to- 
morrow, I  should  just  say,  'Will  it?'  I  have  not  voli- 
tion enough  left  to  dot  my  ^'s,  much  less  to  comb  my 
eyebrows  ;  my  eyes  are  set  in  my  head ;  my  brains  are 
gone  out  to  see  a  poor  relation  in  Moorfields,  and  they 
did  not  say  when  they'd  come  back  again ;  my  skull  is 
a  Grub-Street  attic,  to  let  —  not  so  much  as  a  joint>- 
stool  or  a  cracked  Jordan  left  in  it ;  my  hand  writes, 
not  I,  from  habit,  as  chickens  run  about  a  little,  when 
their  heads  are  off.  O  for  a  vigorous  fit  of  gout,  colic, 
toothache,  an  earwig  in  my  auditory,  a  fly  in  my  visual 
organs  ;  pain  is  life  —  the  sharper,  the  more  evidence 
of  life ;  but  this  apathy,  this  death !  Did  you  ever 
have  an  obstinate  cold,  —  a  six  or  seven  weeks'  uninter- 


LETTERS   TO   BARTON.  365 

mitting  chill  and  suspension  of  hope,  fear,  conscience, 
and  everything  ?  Yet  do  I  try  all  I  can  to  cure  it ;  I 
try  wine,  and  spirits,  and  smoking,  and  snuff  in  un- 
sparing quantities,  but  they  all  only  seem  to  make  me 
worse,  instead  of  better.  I  sleep  in  a  damp  room,  but 
it  does  me  no  good  ;  I  come  home  late  o'  nights,  but 
do  not  find  any  visible  amendment !  Who  shall  deliv- 
er me  from  the  body  of  this  death  ? 

"  It  is  just  fifteen  minutes  after  twelve  ;  Thurtell  is 
by  this  time  a  good  way  on  his  journey,  baiting  at 
Scoi-pion  perhaps  ;  Ketch  is  bargaining  for  his  cast  coat 
and  waistcoat ;  the  Jew  demurs  at  first  at  three  half- 
crowns,  but,  on  consideration  that  he  may  get  some- 
what by  showing  'em  in  the  town,  finally  closes. 

"C.  L." 

Barton  took  this  letter  rather  seriously,  and  Lamb 
thus  sought  to  remove  his  friendly  anxieties. 


TO   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  Jan.  23d,  1824. 

"  My  dear  sir,  —  That  peevish  letter  of  mine,  which 
was  meant  to  convey  an  apology  for  my  incapacity  to 
write,  seems  to  have  been  taken  by  you  in  too  serious 
a  light ;  it  was  only  my  way  of  telling  you  I  had  a 
severe  cold.  The  fact  is,  I  have  been  insuperably  dull 
and  lethargic  for  many  weeks,  and  cannot  rise  to  the 
vigor  of  a  letter,  much  less  an  essay.  The  '  London  ' 
must  do  without  me  for  a  time,  for  I  have  lost  all  in- 
terest about  it ;  and  whether  I  shall  recover  it  again  I 
know  not.  I  will  bridle  my  pen  another  time,  and  not 
teaze  and  puzzle  you  with  my  aridities.     I  shall  begin 


366  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

to  feel  a  little  more  alive  with  the  spring.  Winter  is 
to  me  (mild  or  harsh)  always  a  great  trial  of  the 
spirits.  I  am  ashamed  not  to  have  noticed  your  tribute 
to  Woolman,  whom  we  love  so  mucli.  It  is  done  in 
your  good  manner.  Your  friend  Taylor  called  upon 
me  some  time  since,  and  seems  a  very  amiable  man. 
His  last  story  is  painfully  fine.  His  book  I  '  like  ; '  it 
is  only  too  stuffed  with  scripture,  too  parsonish.  The 
best  thing  in  it  is  the  boy's  own  story.  When  I  say  it 
is  too  full  of  scripture,  I  mean  it  is  too  full  of  direct 
quotations ;  no  book  can  have  too  much  of  silent  scrip- 
ture in  it ;  but  the  natural  power  of  a  story  is  dimin- 
ished when  the  uppermost  purpose  in  the  writer  seems 
to  be  to  recommend  something  else,  viz..  Religion. 
You  know  what  Horace  says  of  the  Deus  intersit  ?  I 
am  not  able  to  explain  myself — you  must  do  it  for  me. 
My  sister's  part  in  the  '  Leicester  School '  (about  two- 
thirds)  was  purely  her  own ;  as  it  was  (to  the  same 
quantity)  in  the  '  Shakspeare  Tales,'  which  bear  my 
name.  I  wrote  only  the  '  Witch  Aunt ; '  the  '  First 
Going  to  Church  ; '  and  the  final  story,  about  'A  little 
Indian  girl,'  in  a  ship.  Your  account  of  my  black- 
balling amused  me.  I  thmJc,  as  QuaJcers  they  did  right. 
There  are  some  things  hard  to  be  understood.  The 
more  I  think,  the  more  I  am  vexed  at  having  puzzled 
you  with  that  letter ;  but  I  have  been  so  out  of  letter- 
writing  of  late  years,  that  it  is  a  sore  effort  to  sit  down 
to  it ;  and  I  felt  in  your  debt,  and  sat  down  wayward- 
ly  to  pay  you  in  bad  money.  Never  mind  my  dul- 
ness  ;  I  am  used  to  long  intervals  of  it.  The  heavens 
seem  brass  to  me  ;  then  again  comes  the  refreshing 
shower  — 

'  I  have  been  merrv  once  or  twice  ere  now.' 


LETTERS   TO  BARTON.  367 

"  You  said  something  about  Mr.  Mitford  in  a  late 
letter  which  I  believe  I  did  not  advert  to.  I  shall  be 
happy  to  show  him  my  Milton  (it  is  all  the  show  things 
I  have)  at  any  time  he  will  take  the  trouble  of  a  jaunt 
to  Islington.  I  do  also  hope  to  see  Mr.  Taylor  there 
some  day.  Pray  say  so  to  both.  Coleridge's  book  is 
in  good  part  printed,  but  sticks  a  little  for  more  copy. 
It  bears  an  unsalable  title,  '  Extracts  from  Bishop 
Leighton,'  but  I  am  confident  there  will  be  plenty  of 
good  notes  in  it. 

"  Keep  your  good  spirits  up,  dear  B.  B.,  mine  will 
return  ;  they  are  at  present  in  abeyance  ;  but  I  am 
rather  lethargic  than  miserable.  I  don't  know  but  a 
good  horsewhip  would  be  more  beneficial  to  me  than 
physic.  My  head,  without  aching,  will  teach  yours  to 
ache.  It  is  well  I  am  getting  to  the  conclusion.  I 
will  send  a  better  letter  when  I  am  a  better  man.  Let 
me  thank  you  for  your  kind  concern  for  me,  (which  I 
trust  will  have  reason  soon  to  be  dissipated,)  and  assure 
you  that  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  hear  from  you. 

"  Yours  truly,  C.  L." 

The  following  sufficiently  indicate  the  circumstances 
under  which  they  were  written  :  — 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  February  25th,  1824. 

"  My  dear  sir,  —  Your  title  of  '  Poetic  Vigils  '  ar- 
rides  me  much  more  than  a  volume  of  verse,  which 
has  no  meaning.  The  motto  says  nothing,  but  I  can- 
not suggest  a  better.  I  do  not  like  mottoes,  but  where 
they  are  singularly  felicitous  ;  there  is  foppery  in  them ; 


368  LETTERS     TO    BARTON. 

they  are  un-plain,  un-Quakerisli ;  they  are  good  only 
where  they  flow  from  the  title,  and  are  a  kind  of  justi- 
fication of  it.  There  is  nothing  ahout  watchings  or 
lucubrations  in  the  one  you  suggest,  no  commentary  on 
vigils.  By  the  way,  a  wag  would  recommend  you  to 
the  line  of  Pope, 

'  Sleepless  himself  —  to  give  his  readers  sleep.' 

I  by  no  means  wish  it ;  but  it  may  explain  what  I 
mean,  —  that  a  neat  motto  is  child  of  the  title.  I 
think  '  Poetic  Vimls  '  as  short  and  sweet  as  can  be 
desired  ;  only  have  an  eye  on  the  proof,  that  the  printer 
do  not  substitute  Virgils,  which  would  ill  accord  with 
your  modesty  or  meaning.  Your  suggested  motto  is 
antique  enough  in  spelling,  and  modern  enough  in 
phrases,  —  a  good  modern  antique  ;  but  the  matter  of 
it  is  germain  to  the  purpose,  only  supposing  the  title 
proposed  a  vindication  of  yourself  from  the  presump- 
tion of  authorship.  The  first  title  was  liable  to  this 
objection  —  that  if  you  were  disposed  to  enlarge  it, 
and  the  bookseller  insisted  on  its  appearance  in  two 
tomes,  how  oddly  it  would  sound,  '  A  Volume  of  Verse 
in  two  Volumes,  Second  Edition,'  &c.  You  see  thro'  my 
wicked  intention  of  curtailing  this  epistolet  by  the  above 
device  of  large  margin.  But  in  truth  the  idea  of  let- 
terizing  has  been  oppressive  to  me  of  late  above  your 
candor  to  give  me  credit  for.  There  is  Southey,  whom 
I  ought  to  have  thanked  a  fortnight  ago  for  a  present 
of  the  '  Church  Book  : '  I  have  never  had  courage  to 
buckle  myself  in  earnest  even  to  acknowledge  it  by  six 
words  ;  and  yet  I  am  accounted  by  some  people  a  good 
man.  How  cheap  that  character  is  acquired  !  Pay 
your  debts,  don't  borrow  money,  nor  twist  your  kit- 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  369 

ten's  neck  off,  or  disturb  a  congregation,  &c.,  your 
business  is  done.  I  know  things  (thoughts  or  things, 
thoughts  are  things,)  of  myself,  which  would  make 
every  friend  I  have  fly  me  as  a  plague  patient.  I  .once 
***,  and  set  a  dog  upon  a  crab's  leg  that  was  shoved 
out  under  a  mass  of  sea-weeds,  —  a  pretty  little  feeler. 
Oh  !  pah  !  how  sick  I  am  of  that ;  and  a  lie,  a  mean 
one,  I  once  told.  I  stink  in  the  midst  of  respect.  I 
am  much  hypt.  The  fact  is,  my  head  is  heavy,  but 
there  is  hope  ;  or  if  not,  I  am  better  than  a  poor  shell- 
fish ;  not  morally,  when  I  set  the  whelp  upon  it,  but , 
have  more  Jblood  and  spirits.  Things  may  turn  up,  and 
I  may  creep  again  into  a  decent  opinion  of  myself. 
Vanity  will  return  with  sunshine.  Till  when,  pai'don 
my  neglects,  and  impute  it  to  the  wintry  solstice. 

"C.  Lamb." 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

[No  date.] 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  I  am  sure  I  cannot  fill  a  letter, 
though  I  should  disfumish  my  skull  to  fill  it :  but  you 
expect  something  and  shall  have  a  notelet.  Is  Sunday, 
not  divinely  speaking,  but  humanly  and  holidaysically, 
a  blessing  ?  Without  its  institution,  would  our  rugged 
taskmasters  have  given  us  a  leisure  day,  so  often,  think 
you,  as  once  in  a  month  ?  or,  if  it  had  not  been  insti- 
tuted, might  they  not  have  given  us  every  sixth  day  ? 
Solve  me  this  problem.  If  we  are  to  go  three  times  a 
day  to  church,  why  has  Sunday  slipt  into  the  notion  of 
a  holUdsLj  ?  A  HoLY-day,  I  grant  it.  The  Puritans, 
I  have  read  in  Southey's  book,  knew  the  distinction. 
They  made  people  observe  Sunday  rigorously,  would 

VOL.   I.  24 


370  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

not  let  a  nursery-maid  walk  out  in  the  fields  with 
children  for  recreation  on  that  day.  But  then  —  they 
gave  the  people  a  holliday  from  all  sorts  of  work  every 
second  Tuesday.  This  was  gi^^ng  to  the  two  Caesars 
that  which  was  his  respective.  Wise,  beautiful, 
thoughtful,  generous  legislators  !  Would  Wilberforce 
give  us  our  Tuesdays  ?  No  !  —  he  would  turn  the 
six  days  into  sevenths, 

"  And  those  three  smiling  seasons  of  the  year 
Into  a  Russian  winter.'  —  Old  Play. 

"  I  am  sitting  opposite  a  person  who  is  making 
strange  distortions  with  the  gout,  which  is  i^ot  unpleas- 
ant —  to  me  at  least.  What  is  the  reason  we  do  not 
sympathize  with  pain,  short  of  some  terrible  surgical 
operation  ?  Hazlitt,  who  boldly  says  all  he  feels,  avows 
that  not  only  he  does  not  pity  sick  people,  but  he  hates 
them.  I  obscurely  recognize  his  meaning.  Pain  is 
probably  too  selfish  a  consideration,  too  simply  a  con- 
sideration of  self-attention.  We  pity  poverty,  loss  of 
friends,  &c.  —  more  complex  things,  in  which  the  suf- 
ferer's feelings  are  associated  with  others.  This  is  a 
rough  thought  suggested  by  the  presence  of  gout ;  I 
want  head  to  extricate  it  and  plane  it.  What  is  all  this 
to  your  letter  ?  I  felt  it  to  be  a  good  one,  but  my  turn, 
when  I  write  at  all,  is  perversely  to  travel  out  of  the 
record,  so  that  my  letters  are  anything  but  answers. 
So  you  still  want  a  motto  ?  You  must  not  take  my 
ironical  one,  because  your  book,  I  take  it,  is  too  serious 
for  it.  Bickerstaff  might  have  used  it  for  his  lucubra- 
tions.  What  do  you  think  of  (for  a  title)  Religio 
Tremuli  ?  or  Tremebundi  ?  There  is  Religio-Medici 
and  Laici.  But  perhaps  the  volume  is  not  quite  Qua- 
kerish enough,  or  exclusively  so,  for  it.     Your  own 


LETTERS   TO   BARTON.  371 

'  Vigils  '  is  perhaps  tlie  best.  While  I  have  space,  let 
me  congratulate  with  you  the  return  of  spring  ;  what 
a  summery  spring  too  !  all  those  qualms  about  the  dog 
and  crayfish  melt  before  it.  I  am  going  to  be  happy 
and  vain  again. 

"  A  hasty  farewell.  C.  Lamb." 


TO   BERNARD   BARtON. 

"  July  rth,  1824. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  I  have  been  suffering  under  a  severe 
inflammation  of  the  eyes,  notwithstanding  which  I  res- 
olutely went  through  your  very  pretty  volume  at  once, 
which  I  dare  pronounce  in  no  ways  inferior  to  former 
lucubi^ations.  '■Abroad^  and  '■lorcV  are  vile  rhymes 
notwithstanding,  and  if  you  count,  you  will  wonder 
how  many  times  you  have  repeated  the  word  unearildy ; 
thrice  in  one  poem.  It  is  become  a  slang  word  with 
the  bards  ;  avoid  it  in  future  lustily.  '  Time '  is  fine, 
but  there  are  better  a  good  deal,  I  think.  The  volume 
does  not  lie  by  me  ;  and,  after  a  long  day's  smarting 
fatigue,  which  has  almost  put  out  my  eyes  (not  blind 
however  to  your  merits),  I  dare  not  trust  myself  with 
long  writing.  The  verses  to  Bloomfield  are  the  sweet- 
est in  the  collection.  Religion  is  sometimes  lugged  in, 
as  if  it  did  not  come  naturally.  I  Avill  go  over  care- 
fully when  I  get  my  seeing,  and  exemplify.  You  have 
also  too  much  of  singing  metre,  such  as  requires  no 
deep  ear  to  make  ;  lilting  measure,  in  which  you  have 
done  Woolman  injustice.  Strike  at  less  superficial 
melodies.     The  piece  on  Nayler  is  more  to  my  fancy. 

"  My  eye  runs  waters.  But  I  will  give  you  a  fuller 
account  some  day.     The  book  is  a  very  pretty  one  in 


372  LETTERS  TO   BARTON. 

more  than  one  sense.     The  decorative  harp,  perhaps, 
too  ostentatious  ;  a  simple  pipe  preferable. 

"  Farewell,  and  many  thanks. 

"C.  Lamb." 

TO   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  August,  1824. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  — j^I  congratulate  you  on  getting  a 
house  over  your  head.  I  find  the  comfort  of  it  I  am 
sure.  The  '  Prometheus,'  unbound,  is  a  capital  story. 
The  literal  rogue  !  What  if  you  had  ordered  '  Elfrida,' 
in  sheets  !  she'd  have  been  sent  up,  I  warrant  you.  Or 
bid  him  clasp  his  bible  (^.  e.  to  his  bosom),  he'd  have 
clapt  on  a  brass  clasp,  no  doubt. 

"  I  can  no  more  understand  Shelley  than  you  can. 
His  poetry  is  '  thin  sown  with  profit  or  delight.'  Yet 
I  must  point  to  your  notice,  a  sonnet  conceived  and 
expressed  with  a  witty  delicacy.  It  is  that  addressed 
to  one  who  hated  him,  but  who  could  not  persuade  him 
to  hate  him  again.  His  coyness  to  the  other's  passion  — 
(for  hate  demands  a  return  as  much  as  love,  and  starves 
without  it)  —  is  most  arch  and  pleasant.  Pray,  like  it 
very  much.  For  his  theories  and  nostrums,  they  are 
oracular  enough,  but  I  either  comprehend  'em  not,  or 
there  is  '  miching  malice '  and  miscliief  in  'em,  but,  for 
the  most  part,  ringing  with  their  own  emptiness.  Haz- 
litt  said  well  of  'em  —  '  Many  are  the  wiser  and  better 
for  reading  Shakspeare,  but  nobody  was  ever  wiser  or 
better  for  reading  Shelley.'  I  wonder  you  will  Sow 
your  correspondence  on  so  barren  a  ground  as  I  am, 
that  make  such  poor  returns.  But  my  head  aches  at 
the  bare  thought  of  letter-writing.  I  wish  all  the  ink 
in  the  ocean  dried  up,  and  would  listen  to  the  quills 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  373 

shivering  up  in  the  candle  flame,  like  parching  martyrs. 
The  same  indisposition  to  write  it  is  has  stopt  my 
'  Elias,'  but  you  will  see  a  futile  effort  in  the  next  num- 
ber, '  wrung  from  me  with  slow  pain.'  The  fact  is, 
my  head  is  seldom  cool  enough.  I  am  dreadfully  indo- 
lent. To  have  to  do  anything  —  to  order  me  a  new 
coat,  for  instance,  though  my  old  buttons  are  shelled 
like  beans  —  is  an  effort.  My  pen  stammers  like  my 
tonffue.  What  cool  craniums  those  old  mditers  of 
foHos  must  have  had,  what  a  mortified  pulse  !  Well ; 
once  more  I  throw  myself  on  your  mercy.  Wishing 
peace  in  thy  new  dweUing, 

"C.  Lamb." 

Mr.  Barton,  having  requested  of  Lamb  some  verses 
for  his  daughter's  album,  received  the  following,  with 
the  accompanying  letter  beneath,  on  30th  September 
in  this  year.  Surely  the  neat  loveliness  of  female 
Quakerism  never  received  before  so  delicate  a  compli- 
ment ! 

"THE  ALBUM   OF   LUCY  BARTON. 

Little  book,  surnamed  of  white, 
Clean  as  yet,  and  fair  to  sight, 
Keep  thy  attribution  right. 

Never  disproportion' d  scrawl, 
Ugly,  old,  (that's  worse  than  all,) 
On  thy  maiden  clearness  faU! 

In  each  letter  here  design'd, 
Let  the  reader  emblem  find 
Neatness  of  the  owner's  mind. 

Gilded  margins  count  a  sin; 
Let  thy  leaves  attraction  win 
By  the  golden  rules  withm; 


374  LETTERS  TO   BARTON. 

Sayings  fetch'd  from  sages  old; 
Laws  which  Holy  Writ  unfold, 
Worthy  to  be  graved  in  gold : 

Lighter  fancies;  not  excluding 
Blameless  wit,  with  nothing  made  in, 
Sometimes  mildly  interluding 

Amid  strains  of  graver  measure : 
Virtue's  self  hath  oft  her  pleasure 
In  sweet  Muses'  groves  of  leisure. 

Riddles  dark,  perplexing  sense ; 

Darker  meanings  of  offence; 

What  but  shades  —  be  banish'd  hence! 

Whitest  thoughts,  in  whitest  dress, 
Candid  meanings  best  express 
Mind  of  quiet  Quakeress." 


TO  BERNARD   BARTON. 

"Dear  B.  B.,  —  'I  am  ill  at  these  numbers;'  but 
if  the  above  be  not  too  mean  to  have  a  place  in  thy 
daughter's  sanctum,  take  them  with  pleasure. 

"  I  began  on  another  sheet  of  paper,  and  just  as  I 
had  penned  the  second  hue  of  stanza  two,  an  ugly  blot 
•fell,  to  illustrate  my  counsel.  I  am  sadly  given  to  blot, 
and  modern  blotting-paper  gives  no  redress  ;  it  only 
smears,  and  makes  it  worse.  The  only  remedy  is 
scratching;  out,  which  o-ives  it  a  clerkish  look.  The 
most  innocent  blots  are  made  with  red  ink,  and  are 
rather  ornamental.  Marry,  they  are  not  always  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  effusions  of  a  cut  finger.  Well, 
I  hope  and  trust  thy  tick  doleru,  or,  however  you  spell 
it,  is  vanished,  for  I  have  frightful  impressions  of  that 
tick,  and  do  altogether  hate  it,  as  an  unpaid  score,  or 
the  tick  of  a  death-watch.  I  take  it  to  be  a  species  of 
Vitus's  dance   (I  omit  the  sanctity,  writing  to  '  one 


LETTER   TO   COLERIDGE.  375 

of  the  men  called  Friends').  I  knew  a  young  lady 
•who  could  dance  no  other  ;  she  danced  it  through  life, 
and  very  queer  and  fantastic  were  her  steps. 

"  Heaven  bless  thee  from  such  measures  and  keep 
thee  fi'OE^  the  foul  fiend,  who  delights  to  lead  after  false 
fires  in  the  night.  Flibbertigibbet,  that  gives  the  web, 
and  I  forget  what  else. 

"  From  my  den,  as  Bunyan  has  it,  30th  Sept.  1824. 

«  C.  L." 

Here  is  a  humorous  expostulation  with  Coleridge  for 
carrying  away  a  book  from  the  cottage,  in  the  absence 
of  its  inmates. 


TO  MR.  COLERIDGE. 

[No  date.] 

"  Dear  C, —  Why  will  you  make  your  visits,  which 
should  give  pleasiu'e,  matter  of  regret  to  your  friends  ? 
you  never  come  but  you  take  away  some  folio,  that  is 
part  of  my  existence.  With  a  great  deal  of  difficulty  I 
was  made  to  comprehend  the  extent  of  my  loss.  My 
maid,  Becky,  brought  me  a  dirty  bit  of  paper,  which 
contained  her  description  of  some  book  which  Mr.  Cole- 
ridge had  taken  away.  It  was  '  Luster's  Tables,'  which, 
for  some  time,  I  could  not  make  out.  '  What !  has  he 
carried  away  any  of  the  tables^  Becky?  '  '  No,  it  wasn't 
any  tables,  but  it  was  a  book  that  he  called  Luster's 
Tables.'  I  was  obliged  to  search  personally  among  my 
shelves,  and  a  huge  fissure  suddenly  disclosed  to  me  the 
true  nature  of  the  damao-e  I  had  sustained.  That  book, 
C,  you  should  not  have  taken  away,  for  it  is  not  mine ; 
it  is  the  property  of  a  fi-iend,  who  does  not  know  its 


376  LETTER  TO  COLERIDGE. 

value,  nor  indeed  have  I  been  very  sedulous  In  explain- 
ing to  him  the  estimate  of  it ;  but  was  rather  contented 
in  giving  a  sort  of  corroboration  to  a  hint  that  he  let  fall, 
as  to  its  being  suspected  to  be  not  genuine,  so  that  in  all 
probability  it  would  have  fallen  to  me  as  a  deodand,  not 
but  I  am  as  sure  it  is  Luther's,  as  I  am  sure  that  Jack 
Bunyan  wrote  the  '  Pilgrim's  Progress,'  but  it  was  not 
for  me  to  pronounce  upon  the  validity  of  testimony  that 
had  been  disputed  by  learneder  clerks  than  I,  so  I 
quietly  let  it  occupy  the  place  it  had  usurped  upon  my 
shelves,  and  should  never  have  thought  of  issuing  an 
ejectment  against  it ;  for  why  should  I  be  so  bigoted  as 
to  allow  rites  of  hospitality  to  none  but  my  own  books, 
children,  &c.  ?  —  a  species  of  egotism  I  abhor  from  my 
heart.  No ;  let  'em  all  snug  together,  Hebrews  and 
Proselytes  of  the  gate ;  no  selfish  partiality  of  mine 
shall  make  distinction  between  them ;  I  charge  no  ware- 
house-room for  my  friends'  commodities  ;  they  are  wel- 
come to  come  and  stay  as  long  as  they  like,  without 
paying  rent.  I  have  several  such  strangers  that  I  treat 
with  more  than  Arabian  courtesy ;  there's  a  copy  of 
More's  fine  poem,  which  is  none  of  mine,  but  I  cherish 
it  as  my  own ;  I  am  none  of  those  churlish  landlords 
that  advertise  the  goods  to  be  taken  away  in  ten  days' 
time,  or  then  to  be  sold  to  pay  expenses.  So  you  see  I 
had  no  right  to  lend  you  that  book ;  I  may  lend  you  my 
own  books,  because  it  is  at  my  own  hazard,  but  it  is  not 
honest  to  hazard  a  friend's  property ;  I  always  make 
that  distinction.  I  hope  you  will  bring  it  with  you  or 
send  it  by  Hartley ;  or  he  can  bring  that,  and  you  the 
'  Polemical  Discourses,'  and  come  and  eat  some  atoning 
mutton  with  us  one  of  these  days  shortly.  We  are  en- 
gaged two  or  three  Simdays  deep,  but  always  dine  at 


LETTER   TO   MISS  HUTCHINSON.  377 

home  on  week-days  at  half-past  four.  So  come  all  four 
—  men  and  books  I  mean.  My  third  shelf  (northern 
compartment)  from  the  top  has  two  devilish  gaps,  where 
you  have  knocked  out  its  two  eye-teeth. 

"T^our  wronged  friend,  "  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  preface  to  a  letter,  addressed  to  Miss 
Hutchinson,  Mrs.  Wordsworth's  sister,  playing  on  the 
pretended  defects  of  Miss  Lamb's  handwriting,  is  one 
of  those  artifices  of  aflFection  which,  not  finding  scope 
in  eulogistic  epithets,  takes  refuge  in  apparent  abuse. 
Lamb  himself  at  this  time  wrote  a  singularly  neat  hand, 
having  greatly  improved  in  the  Lidia  House,  where  he 
also  learned  to  flourish,  —  a  facility  he  took  a  pride  in, 
and  sometimes  indulged  ;  but  his  flourishes  (wherefore 
it  would  be  too  curious  to  inquire)  almost  always  shaped 
themselves  into  a  visionary  corkscrew,  "  never  made  to 
draw," 

TO   MISS  HUTCHINSON. 

"  Dear  Miss  H.,  —  Mary  has  such  an  invincible  re- 
luctance to  any  epistolary  exertion,  that  I  am  sparing 
her  a  mortification  by  taking  the  pen  from  her.  The 
plain  truth  is,  she  writes  such  a  pimping,  mean,  detest- 
able hand,  that  she  is  ashamed  of  the  formation  of  her 
letters.  There  is  an  essential  poverty  and  abjectness  in 
the  frame  of  them.  They  look  like  begging  letters. 
And  then  she  is  sure  to  omit  a  most  substantial  word  in 
the  second  draught  (for  she  never  ventures  an  epistle 
without  a  foul  copy  first),  which  is  obliged  to  be  inter- 
lined ;  which  spoils  the  neatest  epistle  you  know.  Her 
figures,  1,  2,  3,  4,  &c.,  where  she  has  occasion  to  express 
numerals,  as  in  the  date  (25th  April,  1823),  are  not 


378  LETTER  TO  BARTON. 

figures,  but  figurantes ;  and  the  combined  posse  go 
staggering  up  and  down  shameless  as  drunkards  in  the 
daytime.  It  is  no  better  when  she  rules  her  paper. 
Her  Lines  '  are  not  less  erring '  than  her  words.  A 
sort  of  unnatural  parallel  lines,  that  are  j^rpetually 
threatening  to  meet;  which,  you  know,  is  quite  con- 
trary to  Euclid.  Her  very  blots  are  not  bold  like  this 
\Jiere  a  large  blot  is  inserted] ,  but  poor  smears,  half  left 
in  and  half  scratched  out,  with  another  smear  left  in 
their  place.  I  like  a  clear  letter.  A  bold  free  hand, 
and  a  fearless  flourish.  Then  she  has  always  to  go 
through  them  (a  second  operation)  to  dot  her  i's,  and 
cross  her  ^'s.  I  don't  think  she  can  make  a  corkscrew 
if  she  tried,  which  has  such  a  fine  effect  at  the  end 
or  middle  of  an  epistle,  and  fills  up. 

"  There  is  a  corkscrew  !  One  of  the  best  I  ever 
drew.  By  the  way,  what  incomparable  whiskey  that 
was  of  M.'s  !  But  if  I  am  to  write  a  letter,  let  me 
begin,  and  not  stand  flourishing,  like  a  fencer  at  a 
fair. 

"  It  gives  me  great  pleasure,  &c.  &c.  &c." 

[The  letter  now  begins.] 

What  a  strange  mingling  of  humor  and  solemn  truth 
is  there  in  the  following  reflection  on  Fauntleroy's  fate, 
in  a  letter  addressed  to  Bernard  Barton. 


TO  BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  Dec.  1st,  1824. 

"  And  now,  my  dear  sir,  trifling  apart,  the  gloomy 

catastrophe  of  yesterday  morning  prompts  a  sadder  vein. 

The  fate  of  the   unfortunate   Fauntleroy  makes   me, 

whether  I  will  or  no,  to  cast  reflecting  eyes  aromid  on 


LETTER  TO  BARTON.  379 

such  of  my  friends  as,  by  a  parity  of  situation,  are  ex- 
posed to  a  similarity  of  temptation.  My  very  style 
seems  to  myself  to  become  more  impressive  than  usual, 
with  the  change  of  theme.  Who  that  standeth,  know- 
eth  but  ne  may  yet  fall  ?  Your  hands  as  yet,  I  am 
most  willino;  to  believe,  have  never  deviated  into  other's 
property.  You  think  it  impossible  that  you  could  ever 
commit  so  heinous  an  oiffence ;  but  so  thought  Fauntle- 
roy  once ;  so  have  thought  many  besides  him,  who  at 
last  have  expiated  as  he  hath  done.  You  are  as  yet 
upright ;  but  you  are  a  banker,  at  least  the  next  thing 
to  it.  I  feel  the  delicacy  of  the  subject ;  but  cash  must 
pass  through  youi'  hands,  sometimes  to  a  great  amount. 

If  in  an  unguarded  hour  but  I  will  hope  better. 

Consider  the  scandal  it  will  bring  upon  those  of  your 
persuasion.  Thousands  would  go  to  see  a  Quaker 
hanged,  that  would  be  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  a  Pres- 
byterian or  an  Anabaptist.  Think  of  the  effect  it 
would  have  on  the  sale  of  your  poems  alone,  not  to 
mention  higher  considei'ations  !  I  tremble,  I  am  sure, 
at  myself,  when  I  think  that  so  many  poor  victims  of 
the  law,  at  one  time  of  their  life,  made  as  sure  of 
never  being  hanged,  as  I  in  my  presumption  am  too 
ready  to  do  myself  What  are  we  better  than  they  ? 
Do  we  come  into  the  world  with  different  necks  ?  Is 
there  any  distinctive  mark  under  our  lefl  ears  ?  Are 
we  unstrangulable,  I  ask  you  ?  Think  of  these  things. 
I  am  shocked  sometimes  at  the  shape  of  my  own 
fingers,  not  for  their  resemblance  to  the  ape  tribe 
(which  is  something),  but  for  the  exquisite  adaptation 
of  them  to  the  purposes  of  picking,  fingering,  &c. 
No  one  that  is  so  framed,  I  maintain  it,  but  should 
tremble.  "  C.  L." 


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382  EMANCIPATION  FROM  THE  INDIA  HOUSE. 

in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  his  "  Last  Essays  of 
Elia,"  entitled  "  The  Superannuated  Man ; "  but  it 
will  be  interesting  to  contemplate  them,  "  Kving  as 
they  rose,"  in  the  unstudied  letters  to  which  this  chap- 
ter is  devoted. 

A  New  Series  of  the  "  London  Magazine  "  was  com- 
menced with  this  year,  in  an  increased  size  and  price  ; 
but  the  spirit  of  the  work  had  evaporated,  as  often 
happens  to  periodical  works,  as  the  store  of  rich  fancies 
with  which  its  contributors  had  begim,  was  in  a  meas- 
ure exhausted.  Lamb  contributed  a  "Memoir  of 
Listen,"  who  occasionally  enlivened  Lamb's  evening 
parties  with  liis  society ;  and  who,  besides  the  interest 
which  he  derived  from  his  theatrical  fame,  was  recom- 
mended to  Lamb  by  the  cordial  admiration  he  ex- 
pressed for  Munden,  whom  he  used  to  imitate  in  a 
style  delightfully  blending  his  own  humor  with  that 
of  his  sometime  rival.  The  "  Memoir  "  is  altogether 
a  fiction  —  of  which,  as  Lamb  did  not  think  it  worthy 
of  republication,  I  will  only  give  a  specimen.  After 
a  ludicrously  improbable  account  of  his  hero's  pedi- 
gree, birth,  and  early  habits,  Lamb  thus  represents 
his  entrance  on  the  life  of  an  actor. 

"  We  accordingly  find  him  shortly  after  making  his 
debut,  as  it  is  called,  upon  the  Norwich  boards,  in  the 
season  of  that  year,  being  then  in  the  22d  year  of  his 
age.  Having  a  natural  bent  to  tragedy,  he  chose  the 
part  of  '  Pyrrhus,'  in  the  '  Distrest  Mother,'  to  Sally 
Parker's  '  Hermione.'  We  find  him  afterwards  as 
'  Barnwell,'  '  Altamont,'  '  Chamont,'  &c. ;  but,  as  if 
nature  had  destined  him  to  the  sock,  an  unavoidable 
infirmity   absolutely   discapacitated    him   for   tragedy. 


EMANCIPATION  FROM  THE  INDIA  HOUSE.  383 

His  person  at  tliis  latter  period  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking,  was  graceful,  and  even  commanding ;  his 
countenance  set  to  gravity :  he  had  the  power  of  aiTest- 
ing  the  attention  of  an  audience  at  first  sight  almost 
beyond  any  other  tragic  actor.  But  he  could  not  hold 
it.  To  understand  this  obstacle,  we  must  go  back  a 
few  years,  to  those  appalling  reveries  at  Charnwood. 
Those  illusions,  wliich  had  vanished  before  the  dissipa- 
tion of  a  less  recluse  life,  and  more  free  society,  now  in 
his  solitary  tragic  studies,  and  amid  the  mtense  calls 
upon  feeling  incident  to  tragic  acting,  came  back  upon 
him  with  tenfold  vividness.  In  the  midst  of  some 
most  pathetic  passage  —  the  parting  of  Jaffier  with  his 
dying  friend,  for  instance  —  he  would  suddenly  be  sur- 
prised with  a  fit  of  violent  horse-laughter.  While  the 
spectators  were  all  sobbing  before  him  with  emotion, 
suddenly  one  of  those  grotesque  faces  would  peep  out 
upon  him,  and  he  could  not  resist  the  impulse.  A 
timely  excuse  once  or  twice  served  his  pm-pose,  but  no 
audiences  could  be  expected  to  bear  repeatedly  this 
violation  of  the  continuity  of  feeling.  He  describes 
them  (the  illusions)  as  so  many  demons  haunting  him, 
and  paralyzing  every  effort.  Even  now,  I  am  told,  he 
cannot  recite  the  famous  soliloquy  in  '  Hamlet,'  even  in 
private,  without  immoderate  bursts  of  laughter.  How- 
ever, what  he  had  not  force  of  reason  sufficient  to  over- 
come, he  had  good  sense  enough  to  turn  to  emolument, 
and  determined  to  make  a  commodity  of  his  distemper. 
He  prudently  exchanged  the  buskin  for  the  sock,,  and 
the  illusions  instantly  ceased,  or,  if  they  occurred  for 
a  short  season,  by  their  very  cooperation,  added  a 
zest  to  his  comic  vein  ;  some  of  his  most  catching 
faces   being   ( as  he   expresses  it )   little   more   than 


384  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

transcripts  and  copies  of  those  extraordinary  phantas- 
mata." 

He  completed  his  half  century  on  the  day  when  he 
addi'essed  the  following  letter 

TO  BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  February  10th,  1825. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  The  '  Spmt  of  the  Age '  is  by  Haz- 

litt,  the  characters  of  Coleridge,  &c.  he  had  done  better 

in  former  publications,  the  praise  and  the  abuse  much 

stronger,  &c. ;  but  the  new  ones  are  capitally  done. 

Home  Tooke  is  a  matchless  portrait.     My  advice  is  to 

borrow  it  rather  than  buy  it.     I  have  it.     He  has  laid 

too  many  colors  on  my  hkeness ;  but  I  have  had  so 

much  injustice  done  me  m  my  own  name,  that  I  make 

a  rule  of  accepting  as  much  overmeasm-e  to  Eha  as 

gentlemen  think  proper  to  bestow.     Lay  it  on  and  spare 

not.     Your  gentleman  brother  sets  my  mouth  a-water- 

ing  after  liberty.     Oh  that  I  were  kicked  out  of  Lead- 

enhall  with  every  mark  of  indignity,  and  a  competence 

in  my  fob.     The  birds  of  the  air  would  not  be  so  free 

as  I  should.     How  I  would  prance  and  curvet  it,  and 

pick  up  cowslips,  and  ramble  about  purposeless  as  an 

idiot !     The  author-mometer  is  a  good  fancy.     I  have 

caused  great  speculation  in  the  dramatic  (not  thy)  world 

by  a  lying  '  Life  of  Liston,'  all  pure  invention.     The 

town  has  swallowed  it,  and  it  is  copied  into  newspapers, 

playbills,  &c.,   as  authentic.     You  do  not   know  the 

Droll,  and  possibly  missed  reading  the  article  (in  our 

first  number,  new  series).     A  life  more  improbable  for 

him  to  have  lived  would  not  be  easily  invented     But 

your  rebuke,  coupled  with  '  Dream  on  J.   Bunyan,' 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 


Sarton.  385 


checks  me.  I'd  rather  do  more  in  my  favorite  way, 
but  feel  dry.  I  must  laugh  sometimes.  I  am  poor 
Hypochondriacus,  and  rwt  Liston. 

"  I  have  been  harassed  more  than  usually  at  office, 
vs^hich  has  stopt  my  correspondence  lately.  I  write 
with  a  confused,  aching  head,  and  you  must  accept  this 
apology  for  a  letter. 

"  I  will  do  something  soon,  if  I  can,  as  a  peace-offer- 
ing to  the  queen  of  the  East  Angles  —  something  she 
shan't  scold  about.     For  the  present  farewell. 

"  Thine,  C.  L." 

"  I  am  fifly  years  old  this  day.     Drink  my  health." 

Freedom  now  gleamed  on  him,  and  he  became  rest- 
less with  the  approach  of  deliverance. 


TO   BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  March  23d,  1825. 

"  Dear  B.  B.  —  I  have  had  no  impulse  to  write,  or 
attend  to  any  single  object  but  myself  for  weeks  past — 
my  single  self,  I  by  myself —  I.  I  am  sick  of  hope 
deferred.  The  grand  wheel  is  in  agitation,  that  is  to 
turn  up  my  fortune  ;  but  round  it  rolls,  and  will  turn 
up  nothing.  I  have  a  glimpse  of  freedom,  of  becoming 
a  gentleman  at  large ;  but  I  am  put  off  from  day  to  day. 
I  have  offered  my  resignation,  and  it  is  neither  accepted 
nor  rejected.  Eight  weeks  am  I  kept  in  this  fearful 
suspense.  Guess  what  an  absorbing  stake  I  feel  it.  I 
am  not  conscious  of  the  existence  of  friends,  present  or 
absent.  The  East  India  Directors  alone  can  be  that 
thing  to  me  or  not.     I  have  just  learned  that  nothing 

VOL.  1.  26 


386  LETTERS   TO   BARTON. 

will  be  decided  this  week.  Why  the  next  ?  Why  any 
week  ?  It  has  fretted  me  into  an  itch  of  the  fingers ; 
I  nib  'em  against  paper,  and  write  to  you,  rather  than 
not  allay  this  scorbuta. 

"  While  I  can  write,  let  me  adjure  you  to  have  no 
doubts  of  Irving.  Let  Mr.  M.  drop  his  disrespect. 
Irving  has  prefixed  a  dedication  (of  a  missionary  sub- 
ject, first  part)  to  Coleridge,  the  most  beautiful,  cordial, 
and  sincere.  He  there  acknowledges  his  obligation  to 
S.  T.  C.  for  his  knowledge  of  Gospel  truths,  the  nature 
of  a  Christian  Church,  &c.,  to  the  talk  of  Samuel  Tay- 
lor Coleridge  (at  whose  Gamaliel  feet  he  sits  weekly), 
rather  than  to  that  of  all  the  men  living.  This  fi'om 
him,  the  great  dandled  and  petted  sectarian,  to  a  reli- 
gious character  so  equivocal  in  the  world's  eye  as  that 
of  S.  T.  C,  so  foreign  to  the  Kirk's  estimate  —  can  this 
man  be  a  quack  ?  The  language  is  as  affecting  as  the 
spirit  of  the  dedication.  Some  friend  told  him,  '  This 
dedication  will  do  you  no  good,'  ^.  e.,  not  in  the  world's 
repute,  or  with  your  own  people.  '  That  is  a  reason 
for  doing  it,'  quoth  Irving. 

"  I  am  thoroughly  pleased  with  him.  He  is  firm, 
out-speaking,  intrepid,  and  docile  as  a  pupil  of  Py- 
thagoras.    You  must  like  him. 

"  Yours,  in  tremors  of  painful  hope, 

"C.  Lamb." 

These  tremors  of  painful  hope  were  soon  changed 
into  certain  joy.  The  following  letters  contain  his 
own  expressions  of  delight  on  his  deliverance,  as  con- 
veyed to  several  of  his  dearest  friends.  In  the  first  his 
happiness  is  a  little  checked  by  the  death  of  Mr.  Monk- 
house,  a  relation  of  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  who  had  grad- 


LETTER   TO    WORDSWORTH.  387 

ually  won  Lamb's  affections,  and  who  nobly  deserved 
them. 

TO  MR.  WORDSWORTH. 

"  Colebrook  Cottage.  6th  April,  1825. 

"  Dear  Wordsworth,  —  I  have  been  several  times 
meditating  a  letter  to  you  concerning  the  good  thing 
which  has  befallen  me,  but  the  thought  of  poor  Monk- 
house  came  across  me.  He  was  one  that  I  had  exulted 
in  the  prospect  of  congratulating  me.  He  and  you 
were  to  have  been  the  first  participators,  for  indeed  it 
has  been  ten  weeks  since  the  first  motion  of  it.  Here 
am  I  then,  after  thirty-three  years'  slavery,  sitting  in 
my  own  room  at  eleven  o'clock  this  finest  of  all  April 
mornings,  a  freed  man,  with  441Z.  a  year  for  the  re- 
mainder of  my  life,  live  I  as  long  as  John  Dennis,  who 
outlived  his  annuity  and  starved  at  ninety  :  441Z.,  ^.  e., 
450?.,  with  a  deduction  of  91.  for  a  provision  secured  to 
my  sister,  she  being  survivor,  the  pension  guaranteed 
by  Act  Georgii  Tertii,  &c. 

"  I  came  home  forever  on  Tuesday  in  last  week. 
The  incomprehensibleness  of  my  condition  overwhelmed 
me.  It  was  like  passing  from  life  into  eternity.  Every 
year  to  be  as  long  as  three,  i.  e.,  to  have  three  times 
as  much  real  time —  time  that  is  my  own,  in  it !  I  wan- 
dered about  thinking  I  was  happy,  but  feeling  I  was  not. 
But  that  tumultuousness  is  passing  off,  and  I  begin  to 
understand  the  nature  of  the  gift.  Holidays,  even  the 
annual  month,  were  always  uneasy  joys ;  their  con- 
scious fugitiveness ;  the  craving  after  making  the  most 
of  them.  Now,  when  all  is  holiday,  there  are  no  holi- 
days. I  can  sit  at  home,  in  rain  or  shine,  without  a 
restless  impulse  for  walkings.    I  am  daily  steadying,  and 


388  LETTER  TO  WORDSWORTH. 

shall  soon  find  it  as  natui'al  to  me  to  be  my  own  master, 
as  it  has  been  irksome  to  have  had  a  master.  Mary 
wakes  every  morning  with  an  obscmre  feeling  that  some 
good  has  happened  to  us. 

" and  ,  after  their  releasements,  describe 

the  shock  of  their  emancipation  much  as  I  feel  mine. 
But  it  hurt  their  frames.  I  eat,  drink,  and  sleep  sound 
as  ever.  I  lay  no  anxious  schemes  for  going  hither  and 
thither,  but  take  things  as  they  occur.  Yesterday  I  ex- 
cursioned  twenty  miles  ;  to-day  I  write  a  few  letters. 
Pleasuring  was  for  fugitive  playdays ;  mine  are  fugitive 
only  in  the  sense  that  Hfe  is  fugitive.  Freedom  and  life 
coexistent  I 

"  At  the  foot  of  such  a  call  upon  you  for  gratulation, 
I  am  ashamed  to  advert  to  that  melancholy  event. 
Monkhouse  was  a  character  I  learned  to  love  slowly, 
but  it  grew  upon  me,  yearly,  monthly,  daily.  What  a 
chasm  has  it  made  in  our  pleasant  parties  !  His  noble 
friendly  face  was  always  coming  before  me,  till  this 
hurrying  event  in  my  life  came,  and  for  the  time  has 
absorbed  all  interest;  in  fact  it  has  shaken  me  a  httle. 
My  old  desk  companions,  with  whom  I  have  had  such 
merry  hours,  seem  to  reproach  me  for  removing  my  lot 
from  among  them.  They  were  pleasant  creatures  ;  but 
to  the  anxieties  of  business,  and  a  weight  of  possible 
worse  ever  impending,  I  was  not  equal.  Indeed  this 
last  winter  I  was  jaded  out — winters  were  always 
worse  than  other  parts  of  the  year,  because  the  spirits 
are  worse,  and  I  had  no  daylight.  In  summer  I  had 
daylight  evenings.  The  rehef  was  hinted  to  me  from 
a  superior  power  when  I,  poor  slave,  had  not  a  hope 
but  that  I  must  wait  another  seven  years  with  Jacob  — 
and  lo  !  the  Rachel  which  I  coveted  is  brought  to  me. 


LETTER   TO  BAETON.  389 

"  Have  you  read  the  noble  dedication  of  Irving's 
'Missionary  Orations'  to  S.  T.  C?  Who  shall  call 
this  man  a  quack  hereafter?  What  the  Kirk  will 
think  of  it  neither  I  nor  Irving  care.  When  some- 
body suggested  to  him  that  it  woiild  not  be  likely  to 
do  him  good,  videlicet,  among  his  own  people,  '  That 
is  a  reason  for  doing  it,'  was  liis  noble  answer.  That 
Irving  thinks  he  has  profited  mainly  by  S.  T.  C,  I 
have  no  doubt.  The  very  style  of  the  Dedication 
shows  it. 

"  Communicate  my  news  to  Southey,  and  beg  his 
pardon  for  my  being  so  long  acknowledging  his  kind 
present  of  the  '  Church,'  wliich  circumstances,  having 
no  reference  to  himself,  prevented  at  the  time.  Assure 
him  of  my  deep  respect  and  friendliest  feelings. 

"  Divide  the  same,  or  rather  each  take  the  whole  to 
you  —  I  mean  you  and  all  yours.  To  Miss  Hutchinson 
I  must  write  separate. 

"  Farewell !  and  end  at  last,  long  selfish  letter  ! 

"  C.  Lamb." 

TO   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  April,  1825. 

"Dear  B.  B.  —  My  spirits  are  so  tumultuary  with 
the  novelty  of  my  recent  emancipation,  that  I  have 
scarce  steadiness  of  hand,  much  more  mind,  to  com- 
pose a  letter.     I  am  free,  B.  B.  —  free  as  air  ! 

'  The  little  bird  that  wings  the  sky 
Knows  no  such  liberty.' 

I  was  set  free  on  Tuesday  in  last  week  at  four  o'clock. 
I  came  home  forever  ! 

"  I  have  been  describing  my  feelings  as  well  as  I  can 
to  Wordsworth  in  a  long  letter,  and  don't  care  to  repeat. 


390  LETTER  TO  MISS  HUTCHINSON, 

Take  it  briefly,  that  for  a  few  days  I  was  painfully  op- 
pressed by  so  mighty  a  change,  but  it  is  becoming  daily 
more  natural  to  me.  I  went  and  sat  among  'em  all  at 
my  old  thirty-three  years'  desk  yester  morning;  and, 
deuce  take  me,  if  I  had  not  yearnings  at  leaving  all  my 
old  pen-and-ink  fellows,  merry,  sociable  lads,  at  leaving 
them  in  the  lurch,  fag,  fag,  fag  !  —  The  comparison  of 
my  own  superior  felicity  gave  me  anything  but  pleasure. 

"  B.  B.,  I  would  not  serve  another  seven  years  for 
seven  hundred  thousand  pounds  !  I  have  got  441?.  net 
for  life,  sanctioned  by  act  of  parhament,  with  a  provis- 
ion for  Mary  if  she  survives  me.  I  will  live  another 
fifty  years  ;  or,  if  I  live  but  ten,  they  will  be  thirty, 
reckoning  the  quantity  of  real  time  in  them,  ^.  g.,  the 
time  that  is  a  man's  own.  Tell  me  how  you  like  '  Bar- 
bara S.* ; '  will  it  be  received  in  atonement  for  the  fool- 
ish '  Vision  '  —  I  mean  by  the  lady  ?  Apropos^  I  never 
saw  Mrs.  Crawford  in  my  life ;  nevertheless,  it's  all 
true  of  somebody. 

"  Address  me,  in  future,  Colebrook-cottage,  Isling- 
ton. I  am  really  nervous  (but  that  will  wear  off),  so 
take  this  brief  announcement. 

"  Youi's  truly,  "  C.  L." 

TO  MISS  HUTCHINSON. 

"  April  18th,  1825. 

"Dear  Miss  Hutchinson, —  You  want  to  know  all 
about  my  jail  dehvery.  Take  it  then.  About  twelve 
weeks  since  I  had  a  sort  of  intimation  that  a  resignation 
might  be  well  accepted  from  me.    This  was  a  kind  bird's 

•  The  true  heroine  of  this  beautiful  story  is  still  living,  though  she 
has  left  the  stage.  It  is  enough  to  make  a  severer  Quaker  than  B.  B. 
feel  "  that  there  is  some  soul  of  goodness  "  in  players. 


LETTER  TO  MISS  HUTCHINSON.         391 

whisper.     On  that  hint  I  spake.     G and  T 

furnished  me  with  certificates  of  wasted  health  and  sore 
spirits  —  not  much  more  than  the  truth,  I  promise  you 
—  and  for  nine  weeks  I  was  kept  in  a  fright.  I  had 
gone  too  far  to  recede,  and  they  might  take  advantage 
and  dismiss  me  with  a  much  less  sum  than  I  had  reck- 
oned on.  However,  liberty  came  at  last,  with  a  liberal 
provision.  I  have  given  up  what  I  could  have  lived  on 
in  the  country ;  but  have  enough  to  live  here,  by  man- 
agement and  sci'ibbling  occasionally.  I  would  not  go 
back  to  my  prison  for  seven  years  longer,  for  10,000/.  a 
year  —  seven  years  after  one  is  fifty,  is  no  trifle  to  give 
up.  Still  I  am  a  young  pe^isioner,  and  have  served  but 
tliirty-tlu'ee  years  ;  very  few,  I  assure  you,  retire  before 
forty,  forty-five,  or  fifty  years'  service. 

"  You  will  ask  how  I  bear  my  fi'eedom  ?  Faith,  for 
some  days  I  was  staggered ;  could  not  comprehend  the 
magnitude  of  my  dehverance ;  was  confiised,  giddy ; 
knew  not  whether  I  was  on  my  head  or  my  heel,  as  they 
say.  But  those  giddy  feelings  have  gone  away,  and  my 
weather-glass  stands  at  a  degree  or  two  above 

CONTENT. 

"  I  go  about  quiet,  and  have  none  of  that  restless 
hunting  after  recreation,  which  made  holidays  former- 
ly Tineasy  joys.  All  being  holidays,  I  feel  as  if  I  had 
none,  as  they  do  in  heaven,  where  'tis  all  red-letter 
days.  I  have  a  kind  letter  from  the  Wordsworths, 
congratulatory  not  a  little.  It  is  a  damp,  I  do  assure 
you,  amid  all  my  prospects,  that  I  can  receive  iione 
from  a  quarter  upon  which  I  had  calculated,  almost 
more  than  from  any,  upon  receiving  congratulations. 
I  had  grown  to  Hke  poor  Monkhouse  more  and  more. 


392  LETTER  TO  SOUTHEY. 

I  do  not  esteem  a  soul  living  or  not  living  more  wann- 
ly  than  I  had  grown  to  esteem  and  value  him.  But 
words  are  vam.  We  have  none  of  us  to  count  upon 
many  years.  That  is  the  only  cure  for  sad  thoughts. 
If  only  some  died,  and  the  rest  were  permanent  on 
earth,  what  a  thing  a  friend's  death  would  be  then ! 

"  I  must  take  leave,  having  put  off  answering  a  load 
of  letters  to  this  morning,  and  this,  alas  !  is  the  first. 
Our  kindest  remembrances  to  Mrs.  Monkhouse. 
"  And  believe  us  yom*s  most  truly, 

"  C.  Lamb." 

In  this  summer  Lamb  and  his  sister  paid  a  long  visit 
to  Enfield,  which  induced  their  removing  thither  some 
time  afterwards.  The  following  letter  is  addressed 
thence, 

TO  MR.   SOUTHEY. 

"  August  19th,  1825. 

"Dear  Southey,  —  You'll  know  who  this  letter 
comes  from  by  opening  slapdash  upon  the  text,  as  in 
the  good  old  times.  I  never  could  come  into  the  cus- 
tom of  envelopes ;  'tis  a  modem  foppery ;  the  Plinian 
correspondence  gives  no  hint  of  such.  In  singleness  of 
sheet  and  meaning,  then,  I  thank  you  for  your  little 
book.  I  am  ashamed  to  add  a  codicil  of  thanks  for  your 
'  Book  of  the  Church.'  I  scarce  feel  competent  to 
give  an  opinion  of  the  latter ;  I  have  not  reading 
enough  of  that  kind  to  venture  at  it.  I  can  only  say 
the  fact,  that  I  have  read  it  with  attention  and  interest. 
Being,  as  jon  know,  not  quite  a  Churchman,  I  felt  a 
jealousy  at  the  Church  taking  to  herself  the  whole 
deserts  of  Christianity,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  from 


LETTER  TO  SOUTHEY.  393 

Druid  extirpation  downwards.  I  call  all  good  Chris- 
tians the  Church,  Capillarians  and  all.  But  I  am  in 
too  light  a  humor  to  touch  these  matters.  May  all  our 
chm'ches  flom*ish  !  Two  things  staggered  me  in  the 
poem  (and  one  of  them  staggered  both  of  us).  I  can- 
not away  with  a  beautiful  series  of  verses,  as  I  protest 
they  are,  commencing  '  Jenner.'  'Tis  like  a  choice 
banquet  opened  with  a  pill  or  an  electuary  —  physic 
stuff.  T'other  is,  we  cannot  make  out  how  Edith 
should  be  no  more  than  ten  years  old.  By'r  Lady,  we 
had  taken  her  to  be  some  sixteen  or  upwards.  We 
suppose  you  have  only  chosen  the  round  number  for 
the  metre.  Or  poem  and  dedication  may  be  both  older 
than  they  pretend  to ;  but  then  some  hint  might  have 
been  given  ;  for,  as  it  stands,  it  may  only  serve  some 
day  to  puzzle  the  parish  reckoning.  But  w^ithout  in- 
quirmg  further  (for  'tis  ungracious  to  look  into  a  lady's 
years),  the  dedication  is  eminently  pleasing  and  tender, 
and  we  wish  Edith  May  Southey  joy  of  it.  Something, 
too,  struck  us  as  if  we  had  heard  of  the  death  of  John 
May.  A  John  May's  death  was  a  few  years  since  in 
the  papers.  We  think  the  tale  one  of  the  quietest, 
prettiest  things  we  have  seen.  You  have  been  temper- 
ate in  the  use  of  localities,  which  generally  spoil 
poems  laid  in  exotic  regions.  You  mostly  cannot  stir 
out  (in  such  tilings)  for  humming-birds  and  fire-flies. 
A  tree  is  a  Magnoha,  &c.  —  Can  I  but  like  the  truly 
Catholic  spirit  ?  '  Blame  as  thou  mayest  the  Papist's 
erring  creed'— which,  and  other  passages,  brought  me 
back  to  the  old  Anthology  days  and  the  admonitory 
lesson  to  '  Dear  George  '  on  '  The  Vesper  Bell,'  a  little 
poem  which  retains  its  first  hold  upon  me  strangely. 
"  The  compliment  to  the  translatress  is  daintily  con- 


394  LETTER  TO  SOUTHEY. 

ceived.  Notliing  is  choicer  in  that  sort  of  writing  than 
to  bring  in  some  remote,  impossible  parallel,  —  as  be- 
tween a  great  empress  and  the  inobtrusive  quiet  soul 
who  digged  her  noiseless  way  so  perseveringly  through 
that  rugged  Paraguay  mine.  How  she,  Dobrizhoffered 
it  all  out,  it  puzzles  my  slender  Latinity  to  conjecture. 
Why  do  you  .seem  to  sanction  Landor's  mifeeling  al- 
legorizing away  of  honest  Quixote !  He  may  as  well 
say  Strap  is  meant  to  symbolize  the  Scottish  nation  be- 
fore the  Union,  and  Random  since  that  act  of  dubious 
issue  ;  or  that  Partridge  means  the  Mystical  Man,  and 
Lady  Bellaston  typifies  the  Woman  upon  Many  Wa- 
ters. Gebir,  indeed,  may  mean  the  state  of  the  hop 
markets  last  month,  for  anything  I  know  to  the  con- 
trary. That  all  Spain  overflowed  with  romancical 
books  (as  Madge  Newcastle  calls  them)  was  no  reason 
that  Cervantes  should  not  smile  at  the  matter  of  them ; 
nor  even  a  reason  that,  in  another  mood,  he  might  not 
multiply  them,  deeply  as  he  was  tinctured  with  the  es- 
sence of  them.  Quixote  is  the  father  of  gentle  ridicule, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  very  depository  and  treasury 
of  chivalry  and  highest  notions.  Marry,  when  some- 
body persuaded  Cervantes  that  he  meant  only  fun,  and 
put  him  upon  writing  that  unfortunate  Second  Part 
with  the  confederacies  of  that  unworthy  duke  and  most 
contemptible  duchess,  Cervantes  sacrificed  his  instinct 
to  his  understanding. 

"  We  got  your  little  book  but  last  night,  being  at 
Enfield,  to  which  place  we  came  about  a  month  since, 
and  are  having  quiet  holidays.  Mary  walks  her  twelve 
miles  a  day  some  days,  and  I  my  twenty  on  others. 
'Tis  all  holiday  with  me  now,  you  know.  The  change 
works  admirably. 


LETTER  TO  SOUTHEY.  395 

"  For  literary  news,  in  my  poor  way,  I  have  a  one- 
act  farce  going  to  be  acted  at  Haymarket ;  but  when  ? 
is  the  question.  'Tis  an  extravaganza,  and  hke  enough 
to  follow  '  Mr.  H.'  '  The  London  Magazine  '  has  shifted 
its  publishers  once  more,  and  I  shall  shift  myself  out  of 
it.  It  is  fallen.  My  ambition  is  not  at  present  higher 
than  to  write  nonsense  for  the  playhouses,  to  eke  out 
a  something  contracted  income,  Tempus  erat.  There 
was  a  time,  my  dear  Cornwallis,  when  the  Muse,  &c. 
But  I  am  now  in  Mac  Fleckno's  predicament,  — 

'  Promised  a  play,  and  dwindled  to  a  farce.' 

"  Coleridge  is  better  (was,  at  least,  a  few  weeks 
since)  than  he  has  been  for  years.  His  accomplishing 
his  book  at  last  has  been  a  source  of  vigor  to  him. 
We  are  on  a  half  visit  to  his  friend  Allsop,  at  a  Mrs. 
Leishman's,  Enfield,  but  expect  to  be  at  Colebrook- 
cottage  in  a  week  or  so,  where,  or  anywhere,  I  shall 
be  always  most  happy  to  receive  tidings  from  you. 
G.  Dyer  is  in  the  height  of  an  uxorious  paradise.  His 
honey-moon  will  not  wane  till  he  wax  cold.  Never 
was  a  more  happy  pair,-  since  Acme  and  Septimius,  and 
longer.  Farewell,  with  many  thanks,  dear  S.  Our 
loves  to  all  round  your  Wrekin. 

"  Your  old  friend,  C.  Lamb." 

The  farce  referred  to  in  this  letter  was  founded  on 
Lamb's  essay  "  On  the  Inconvenience  of  being  Hanged." 
It  was,  perhaps,  too  slight  for  the  stage,  and  never  was 
honored  by  a  trial ;  but  Avas  ultimately  published  in 
*'  Blackwood's  Magazine." 


396  LETTERS  TO  ROBINSON,  GARY,  COLERIDGE,  ETC. 

CHAPTER    XVI. 

[1826  to  1828.] 

LETTERS  TO  ROBINSON,  CART,  COLERIDGE,  PATMORE,  PROCTER, 

AND    BARTON. 

When  the  first  enjoyment  of  freedom  was  over,  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  Lamb  was  happier  for  the 
change.  He  lost  a  grievance  on  which  he  could  lavish 
all  the  fantastical  exaggeration  of  a  sufferer,  without 
woimding  the  feelings  of  any  individual,  and  perhaps 
the  loss  was  scarcely  compensated  by  the  listless  leisure 
which  it  brought  him.  Whenever  the  facile  kindness 
of  his  disposition  permitted,  he  fled  from  those  temp- 
tations of  society,  which  he  could  only  avoid  by  flight ; 
and  his  evening  hours  of  solitude  were  hardly  so  sweet 
as  when  they  were  the  reliefs  and  resting-places  of  his 
mind,  —  "glimpses  which  might  make  him  less  forlorn" 
of  the  world  of  poetry  and  romance.  His  mornings 
were  chiefly  occupied  in  long  walks,  sometimes  extend- 
ing to  ten  or  twelve  miles,  in  which  at  this  time  he  was 
accompanied  by  a  noble  dog,  the  property  of  Mr.  Hood, 
to  whose  humors  Lamb  became  almost  a  slave,*  and 

*  The  following  allusion  to  Lamb's  subservience  to  Dash  is  extracted 
from  one  of  a  series  of  papers,  written  in  a  most  cordial  spirit,  and  with 
great  characteristic  power,  by  the  friend  to  whom  Dash  was  assigned, 
which  appeared  in  the  "  Court  Magazine."  "  During  these  interminable 
rambles  —  heretofore  pleasant  in  virtue  of  their  profound  loneliness  and 
freedom  from  restraint,  Lamb  made  himself  a  perfect  slave  to  the  dog  — 
whose  habits  were  of  the  most  extravagantly  eiTant  nature,  for,  generally 
speaking,  the  creature  was  half  a  mile  off  from  his  companion  either  before 
or  behind,  scouring  the  fields  or  roads  in  all  directions,  scampering  up  or 
down  '  all  manner  of  streets,'  and  leaving  Lamb  in  a  perfect  fever  of  irri- 
tation and  annoyance;  for  he  was  afraid  of  losing  the  dog  when  it  was  out 
of  sight,  and  yet  could  not  persuade  himself  to  keep  it  in  sight  for  a  moment 


LETTERS  TO  ROBINSON,  GARY,  COLERIDGE,  ETC.     397 

who,  at  last,  acquired  so  portentous  an  ascendancy  that 
Lamb  requested  his  friend  Mr.  Patmore  to  take  him 
under  his  care.  At  length  the  desire  of  assisting  Mr. 
Hone,  in  his  struggle  to  support  his  family  by  antiqua- 
rian research  and  modern  pleasantry,  renewed  to  him 
the  blessing  of  regular  labor ;  he  began  the  task  of 
reading  through  the  glorious  heap  of  dramas  coDected 
at  the  British  Museum  under  the  title  of  the  "  Garrick 
Plays,"  to  glean  scenes  of  interest  and  beauty  for  the 
work  of  his  friend  :  and  the  work  of  kindness  brought 
with  it  its  own  reward. 

"  It  is  a  sort  of  office  to  me,"  says  Lamb,  in  a  letter 
to  Barton  ;  "  hours  ten  to  four,  the  same.  It  does  me 
good.  Man  must  have  regular  occupation  that  has 
been  used  to  it." 

The  Christmas  of  1825  was  a  melancholy  season  for 
Lamb.  He  had  always  from  a  boy  spent  Christmas  in 
the  Temple  with  Mr.  Norris,  an  officer  of  the  Inner 
Temple,  and  this  Christmas  was  made  wretched  by  the 
last  illness  of  his  oldest  friend.  Anxious  to  excite  the 
sympathy  of  the  Benchers  of  the  Inn  for  the  survivors. 
Lamb  addressed  the  following;  letter  to  a  fr'iend  as  zeal- 
ous  as  himself  in  all  generous  offices,  in  order  that  he 
might  show  it  to  some  of  the  Benchers. 

by  curbing  its  roving  spirit.  Dash  knew  Lamb's  weakness  in  these  par- 
ticulars as  well  as  he  did  himself,  and  took  a  dog-like  advantage  of  it.  In 
the  Regent's  Park,  in  particular,  Dash  had  his  master  completely  at  his 
mercy;  for  the  moment  they  got  into  the  ring,  he  used  to  get  through  the 
paling  on  to  the  greensward,  and  disappear  for  a  quarter  or  half  an  hour 
together,  knowing  perfectly  well  that  Lamb  did  not  dare  move  from  the 
spot  where  he  (Dash)  had  disappeared,  till  such  time  as  he  thought  proper 
to  show  himself  again.  And  they  used  to  take  this  particular  walk  much 
oftener  than  they  otherwise  would,  precisely  because  Dash  liked  it  and 
Lamb  did  not."  —  Under  his  second  master,  we  learn  from  the  same 
source,  that  Dash  "  subsided  into  the  best  bred  and  best  behaved  of  his 
species." 


398  LETTER  TO  ROBINSON. 


TO  MR.  H.  C.  ROBINSON. 


"  Colebrook  Row,  Islingtc  •• 

"  Saturday,  20th  Jan.  1826. 

"  Dear  Robinson,  —  I  called  upon  you  this  morning, 
and  found  that  you  were  gone  to  visit  a  dying  friend. 
I  had  been  upon  a  like  errand.  Poor  Norris  has  been 
lying  dying  for  now  almost  a  week,  such  is  the  penalty 
we  pay  for  having  enjoyed  a  strong  constitution ! 
Whether  he  knew  me  or  not,  I  know  not ;  or  whether 
he  saw  me  through  his  poor  glazed  eyes ;  but  the  group 
I  saw  about  liim  I  shall  not  forget.  Upon  the  bed,  or 
about  it,  were  assembled  his  wife  and  two  daughters, 
and  poor  deaf  Richard,  his  son,  looking  doubly  stupe- 
fied. There  they  were,  and  seemed  to  have  been  sit- 
ting all  the  week.  I  could  only  reach  out  a  hand  to 
Mrs.  Norris.  Speaking  was  impossible  in  that  mute 
chamber.  By  this  time  I  hope  it  is  all  over  with  him. 
In  him  I  have  a  loss  the  world  cannot  make  up.  He 
was  my  friend  and  my  father's  friend  all  the  life  I  can 
remember.  I  seem  to  have  made  foolish  friendships 
ever  since.  Those  are  friendships  which  outlive  a 
second  generation.  Old  as  I  am  waxing,  in  his  eyes  I 
was  still  the  child  he  first  knew  me.  To  the  last  he 
called  me  Charley.  I  have  none  to  call  me  Charley 
now.  He  was  the  last  link  that  bound  me  to  the  Tem- 
ple. You  are  but  of  yesterday.  In  him  seemed  to 
have  died  the  old  plainness  of  manners  and  singleness 
of  heart.  Letters  he  knew  nothing  of,  nor  did  his  read- 
ing extend  beyond  the  pages  of  the  '  Gentleman's  Mag- 
azine.' Yet  there  was  a  pride  of  literature  about  him 
from  being  amongst  books  (he  was  librarian),  and  from 
some  scraps  of  doubtful  Latm  which  he  had  picked  up 


LETTER  TO  ROBINSON.  399 

in  his  office  of  entering  students,  that  gave  him  very 
diverting  airs  of  pedantry.  Can  I  forget  the  erudite 
look  with  which,  when  he  had  been  in  vain  trying  to 
make  out  a  black-letter  text  of  Chaucer  in  the  Temple 
Library,  he  laid  it  down  and  told  me  that  —  '  in  those 
old  books,  Charley,  there  is  sometimes  a  deal  of  very 
indifferent  spelling ; '  and  seemed  to  console  himself  in 
the  reflection !  His  jokes,  for  he  had  his  jokes,  are 
now  ended  ;  but  they  were  old  trusty  perennials,  staples 
that  pleased  after  deeies  repetita,  and  were  always  as 
good  as  new.  One  song  he  had,  which  was  reserved 
for  the  night  of  Christmas-day,  which  we  always  spent 
in  the  Temple.  It  was  an  old  thing,  and  spoke  of  the 
flat  bottoms  of  our  foes,  and  the  possibility  of  their 
coming  over  in  darkness,  and  alluded  to  threats  of  an 
invasion  many  years  blown  over ;  and  when  he  came 
to  the  part 

'  We'll  still  make  'em  run,  and  we'll  still  make  'em  sweat, 
In  spite  of  the  devil,  and  Brussels  Gazette! ' 

his  eyes  would  sparkle  as  with  the  freshness  of  an  im- 
pending event.  And  what  is  the  Brussels  Gazette 
now  ?  I  cry  while  I  enumerate  these  trifles.  '  How 
shall  we  tell  them  in  a  stranger's  ear  ?  ' 

"  My  first  motive  in  writing,  and,  indeed,  in  calling 
on  you,  was  to  ask  if  you  were  enough  acquainted 
with  any  of  the  Benchers,  to  lay  a  plain  statement  be- 
fore them  of  the  circumstances  of  the  family.  I  almost 
fear  not,  for  you  are  of  another  hall.  But  if  you  can 
obhge  me  and  my  poor  friend,  who  is  now  insensible  to 
any  favors,  pray  exert  yourself.  You  cannot  say  too 
much  good  of  poor  Norris  and  his  poor  wife. 

"  Yours  ever,  Charles  Lamb." 


400  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

In   the   spring   of  1826,    the    following    letters  to 
Bernard  Barton  were  written. 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  Feb.  7th,  1826. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  I  got  your  book  not  more  than  five 
days  ago,  so  am  not  so  negligent  as  I  must  have  ap- 
peared to  you  with  a  fortnight's  sin  upon  my  shoulders. 
I  tell  you  with  sincerity,  that  I  think  you  have  com- 
pletely succeeded  in  what  you  intended  to  do.  What 
is  poetry  may  be  disputed.  These  are  poetry  to  me  at 
least.  They  are  concise,  pithy,  and  moving.  Uniform 
as  they  are,  and  untristorify'd,  I  read  them  through 
at  two  sittings,  without  one  sensation  approaching  to 
tedium.  I  do  not  know  that  among  your  many  kind 
presents  of  this  nature,  this  is  not  my  favorite  volume. 
The  language  is  never  lax,  and  there  is  a  unity  of  de- 
sign and  feeling.  You  wrote  them  with  love — to  avoid 
the  coxcombical  phrase,  con  amove.  I  am  particularly 
pleased  with  the  '  Spiritual  Law,'  pages  34  and  35.  It 
reminded  me  of  Quarles,  and  '  holy  Mr.  Herbert,'  as 
Izaak  Walton  calls  him ;  the  two  best,  if  not  only,  of 
our  devotional  poets,  though  some  prefer  Watts,  and 
some  Tom  Moore.  I  am  far  from  well,  or  in  my  right 
spirits,  and  shudder  at  pen-and-ink  work.  I  poke  out  a 
monthly  crucUty  for  Colburn  in  his  magazine,  which  I 
call  '  Popular  Fallacies,'  and  periodically  crush  a  prov- 
erb or  two,  setting  up  m'y  folly  against  the  wisdom  of 
nations.     Do  you  see  the  '  New  Monthly  ?  ' 

"  One  word  I  must  object  to  in  your  little  book,  and 
it  recurs  more  than  once  —  fadeless  is  no  genuine  com- 
pound; loveless  is,  because  love  is  a  noun  as  well  as 


LETTEES  TO   BARTON.  401 

verb ;  but  what  is  a  fade  ?  And  I  do  not  quite  like 
whipping  the  Greek  drama  upon  the  back  of '  Genesis,' 
page  8.  I  do  not  like  praise  handed  in  bj  disparao-e- 
ment ;  as  I  objected  to  a  side  censure  on  Byron,  &c.  in 
the  '  Lines  on  Bloomfield.'  With  these  poor  cavils 
excepted,  your  verses  are  without  a  flaw. 

"  C.  Lamb." 

TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  March  20th,  1826. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  You  may  know  my  letters  by  the 
paper  and  the  folding.  For  the  former,  I  live  on  scraps 
obtained  in  charity  from  an  old  fi-iend,  whose  stationery- 
is  a  permanent  perquisite;  for  folding,  I  shall  do  it 
neatly  when  I  learn  to  tie  my  neckcloths.  I  surprise 
most  of  my  friends,  by  writing  to  them  on  ruled  paper, 
as  if  I  had  not  got  past  pothooks  and  hangers.  Sealing- 
wax,  I  have  none  on  my  establishment ;  wafers  of  the 
coarsest  bran  supply  its  place.  When  my  epistles  come 
to  be  weighed  with  Pliny's,  however  superior  to  the 
Roman  in  delicate  irony,  judicious  reflections,  &c.,  his 
gilt  post  will  bribe  over  the  judges  to  him.  All  the  time 
I  was  at  the  E.  I.  H.,  I  never  mended  a  pen  ;  I  now  cut 
'em  to  the  stumps,  mam'ng  rather  than  mending  the 
primitive  goose-quill.  I  cannot  bear  to  pay  for  articles 
I  used  to  get  for  nothing.  When  Adam  laid  out  his 
first  penny  upon  nonpareils  at  some  stall  in  Mesopot- 
amos,  I  think  it  went  hard  with  him,  reflecting  upon  his 
old  goodly  orchard,  where  he  h^d  so  many  for  nothing. 
When  I  write  to  a  great  man  at  the  court  end,  lie  opens 
with  surprise  upon  a  naked  note,  such  as  Whitechapel 
people  interchange,  with  no  sweet  degrees  of  envelope. 

I  never  enclosed  one  bit  of  paper  in  another,  nor  under- 
VOL.  I.  26 


402  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

stood  the  rationale  of  it.  Once  only  I  sealed  with  bor- 
rowed wax,  to  set  Walter  Scott  a  wondering,  signed 
with  the  imperial  quartered  arms  of  England,  which 
my  friend  Field  bears  in  compliment  to  his  descent,  in 
the  female  line,  from  Oliver  Cromwell.  It  must  have 
set  liis  antiquarian  curiosity  upon  watering.  To  your 
questions  upon  the  currency,  I  refer  you  to  Mr.  Robin- 
son's last  speech,  where,  if  you  can  find  a  solution,  I 
cannot.  I  think  this,  though,  the  best  ministry  we 
ever  stumbled  upon ;  —  gin  reduced  four  shillings  in 
the  gallon,  wine  two  shillings  in  the  quart !  This 
comes  home  to  men's  minds  and  bosoms.  My  thade 
against  visitors  was  not  meant  particularly  at  you  or 

A.  K .     I  scarce  know  what  I  meant,  for  I  do  not 

just  now  feel  the  grievance.  I  wanted  to  make  an 
article.  So  in  another  thing  I  talked  of  somebody's 
insipid  wife,  without  a  correspondent  object  in  my 
head :  and  a  good  lady,  a  friend's  wife,  whom  I  really 
love,  (don't  startle,  I  mean  in  a  licit  way,)  has  looked 
shyly  on  me  ever  since.  The  blunders  of  personal 
application  are  ludicrous.  I  send  out  a  character  every 
now  and  then,  on  piu^ose  to  exercise  the  ingenuity  of 
my  friends.  '  Popular  Fallacies  '  will  go  on  ;  that  word 
concluded  is  an  erratum,  I  suppose  for  continued.  I 
do  not  know  how  it  got  stuffed  in  there.  A  little  thing 
without  name  will  also  be  printed  on  the  Religion  of 
the  Actors,  but  it  is  out  of  your  way,  so  I  recommend 
you,  with  true  author's  hypocrisy,  to  skip  it.  We  are 
about  to  sit  down  to  roast  beef,  at  which  we  could  wish 
A.  K.,  B.  B.,  and  B.  B.'s  pleasant  daughter  to  be 
humble  partakers.  So  much  for  my  hint  at  visitors, 
which  was  scarcely  calculated  for  droppers-in  from 
Woodbridge  ;  the  sky  does  not  drop  such  larks  every 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  403 

day.     My  very  kindest  wishes  to  you  all  three,  with 
my  sister's  best  love.  C  Lamb." 


TO   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  May  16th,  1826. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  I  have  had  no  spirits  lately  to  begin 
a  letter  to  you,  though  I  am  under  obligations  to  you 
(how  many !)  for  your  neat  little  poem.  'Tis  just 
what  it  professes  to  be,  a  simple  tribute,  in  chaste  verse, 
serious  and  sincere. 

"  I  do  not  know  how  friends  will  relish  it,  but  we 
outlyers,  honorary  friends,  like  it  very  well.  I  have 
had  my  head  and  ears  stuffed  up  with  the  east  winds. 
A  continual  ringing  in  my  brain  of  bells  jangled,  or 
the  spheres  touched  by  some  raw  angel.  Is  it  not 
George  the  Third  trying  the  '  Hundredth  Psalm.'  I  get 
my  music  for  nothing.  But  the  weather  seems  to  be 
softening,  and  will  thaw  my  stunnings.  Coleridge, 
writing  to  me  a  week  or  two  since,  begins  his  note  — 
'  Summer  has  set  in  with  its  usual  severity.'  A  cold 
summer  is  all  I  know  of  disagreeable  in  cold.  I  do  not 
mind  the  utmost  rigor  of  real  winter,  but  these  smiling 
hypocrites  of  Mays  wither  me  to  death.  My  head  has 
been  a  ringing  chaos,  like  the  day  the  winds  were 
made,  before  they  submitted  to  the  discipline  of  a 
weathercock,  before  the  quarters  were  made.  In  the 
street,  with  the  blended  noises  of  life  about  me,  I  hear, 
and  my  head  is  hghtened  ;  but  in  a  room  the  hubbub 
comes  back,  and  I  am  deaf  as  a  sinner.  Did  I  tell  you 
of  a  pleasant  sketch  Hood  has  done,  which  he  calls  — 
'  Very  deaf  indeed  f '  It  is  of  a  good-natured  stupid- 
looking  old  gentleman,  whom  a  footpad  has  stopped, 


404  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

but  for  his  extreme  deafness  cannot  make  him  under- 
stand what  he  wants.  The  unconscious  old  gentleman 
is  extending  his  ear-trumpet  very  complacently,  and  the 
fellow  is  firing  a  pistol  into  it  to  make  him  hear,  but  the 
ball  will  pierce  his  skull  sooner  than  the  report  reach 
his  sensorium.  I  choose  a  very  little  bit  of  paper,  for 
my  ear  hisses  when  I  bend  down  to  write.  I  can 
hardly  read  a  book,  for  I  miss  that  small  soft  voice 
which  the  idea  of  articulated  words  raises  (almost 
imperceptibly  to  you)  in  a  silent  reader.  I  seem  too 
deaf  to  see  what  I  read.  But  with  a  touch  or  two  of 
returning  zephyr  my  head  will  melt.  What  lies  you 
poets  tell  about  the  May !  It  is  the  most  ungenial  part 
of  the  year.  Cold  crocuses,  cold  primroses,  you  take 
your  blossoms  in  ice  —  a  painted  sun. 

'  Unmeaning  joy  around  appears, 
And  nature  smiles  as  if  she  sneers.' 

"  It  is  ill  with  me  when  I  begin  to  look  which  way 
the  wind  sits.  Ten  years  ago,  I  literally  did  not  know 
the  point  from  the  broad  end  of  the  vane,  which  it  was 
that  indicated  the  quarter.  I  hope  these  ill-winds  have 
blown  over  you  as  they  do  through  me. 

"  So  A.  K.  keeps  a  school ;  she  teaches  nothing 
wrong,  I'll  answer  for't.  I  have  a  Dutch  print  of  a 
school-mistress  ;  little  old-fashioned  Fleminglings,  with 
only  one  face  among  them.  She  a  princess  of  a  school- 
mistress, wielding  a  rod  for  form  more  than  use ;  the 
scene,  an  old  monastic  chapel,  with  a  Madonna  over 
her  head,  looking  just  as  serious,  as  thoughtful,  as  pure, 
as  gentle  as  herself.     'Tis  a  type  of  thy  friend. 

"  Yours  with  kindest  wishes  to  your  daughter  and 
friend,  in  which  Mary  joins,  C.  Lamb. 


?5 


LETTER  TO   COLERIDGE.  405 

About  this  time  a  little  sketch  was  taken  of  Lamb, 
and  published.  It  is  certamly  not  flattering  ;  but  there 
is  a  touch  of  Lamb's  character  in  it.  He  sent  one  of 
the  prints  to  Coleridge,  with  the  following  note. 


TO    MR.    COLERIDGE. 

"June  1st,  1826. 

"  Dear  Coleridge,  —  If  I  know  myself,  nobody  more 
detests  the  display  of  personal  vanity,  which  is  implied 
in  the  act  of  sitting  for  one's  pictm-e,  than  myself. 
But  the  fact  is,  that  the  hkeness  wliich  accompanies  this 
letter  was  stolen  from  my  person  at  one  of  my  un- 
guarded moments  by  some  too  partial  artist,  and  my 
friends  are  pleased  to  think  that  he  has  not  much  flat- 
tered me.  Whatever  its  merits  may  be,  you,  who  have 
so  great  an  mte)-est  in  the  original,  will  have  a  satisfac- 
tion in  tracing  the  features  of  one  that  has  so  long 
esteemed  you.  There  are  times  when  in  a  friend's 
absence  these  graphic  representations  of  him  almost 
seem  to  bring  back  the  man  himself.  The  painter, 
whoever  he  was,  seems  to  have  taken  me  in  one  of 
those  disengaged  moments,  if  I  may  so  term  them, 
when  the  native  character  is  so  much  more  honestly 
displayed  than  can  be  possible  in  the  restraints  of  an 
inforced  sitting  attitude.  Perhaps  it  rather  describes 
me  as  a  thinking  man,  than  a  man  in  the  act  of  thought. 
Whatever  its  pretensions,  I  know  it  will  be  dear  to  you, 
towards  whom  I  should  wish  my  thoughts  to  flow  in  a 
sort  of  an  undress  rather  than  m  the  more  studied  graces 
of  diction. 

"  I  am,  dear  Coleridge,  yours  sincerely, 

"C.  Lamb." 


406  LETTER  TO  GARY. 

In  the  following  summer,  Lamb  and  his  sister  went 
on  a  long  visit  to  Enfield,  which  ultimately  led  to  his 
giving  up  Colebrooke  Cottage,  and  becoming  a  constant 
resident  at  that  place.  It  was  a  great  sacrifice  to  him, 
who  loved  London  so  well ;  but  his  sister's  health  and 
his  own  required  a  secession  from  the  crowd  of  visitors 
who  pressed  on  him  at  Islington,  and  whom  he  could 
not  help  welcoming.  He  thus  invited  Mr.  Gary,  now 
librarian  of  the  British  Museum,  to  look  in  upon  his 
retreat. 

TO   MR.    GARY. 

"  Dear  Sir,  —  It  is  whispered  me  that  you  will  not 
be  unwilling  to  look  into  our  doleful  hermitage.  With- 
out more  preface,  you  will  gladden  our  cell  by  accom- 
panying our  old  chums  of  the  London,  Darley  and 
A.  C,  to  Enfield  on  Wednesday.  You  shall  have 
hermit's  fare,  with  talk  as  serapliical  as  the  novelty  of 
the  divine  life  will  permit,  with  an  innocent  retrospect 
to  the  world  which  we  have  left,  when  I  will  thank 
you  for  your  hospitable  offer  at  Chiswick,  and  with 
plain  hermit  reasons  evince  the  necessity  of  abiding 
here. 

"  Without  hearing  from  you,  then,  you  shall  give  us 
leave  to  expect  you.  I  have  long  had  it  on  my  con- 
science to  invite  you,  but  spirits  have  been  low ;  and 
I  am  indebted  to  chance  for  this  awkward  but  most 
sincere  invitation. 

"  Yours,  with  best  loves  to  Mrs.  Gary, 

"  C.  Lamb. 


»j 


"  D.  knows  all  about  the  coaches.     Oh,  for  a  Mu- 
seum in  the  wilderness  ! " 


LETTER  TO   COLERIDGE.  407 

The  following  letter  was  addressed  about  this  time 
to  Coleridge,  who  was  seriously  contemplating  a  poet- 
ical pantomime. 

TO  MR.   COLERIDGE. 

"  1826. 

"  Dear  C,  —  We  will  with  great  pleasin-e  be  with 
you  on  Thursday  in  the  next  week  early.     Your  find- 
ing out  my  style  in  your  nephew's  pleasant  book  is  sur- 
prising to  me.     I  want  eyes  to  descry  it.     You  are  a 
little  too  hard  upon  his  morahty,  though  I  confess  he 
has  more  of  Sterne  about  him  than  of  Sternhold.     But 
he  saddens  into  excellent  sense  before  the  conclusion. 
Your  query  shall  be  submitted  to  Miss  Kelly,  though  it 
is  obvious  that  the  pantomime,  when  done,  will  be  more 
easy  to  decide  upon  than  in  proposal.     I  say,  do  it,  by 
all  means.     I  have  Decker's  play  by  me,  if  you  can 
filch  anytliing  out  of  it.     Miss  G — ,  with  her  kitten 
eyes,  is  an  actress,  though  she  shows  it  not  at  all ; 
and  pupil  to  the  former,  whose  gestures  she  mimics  in 
comedy  to  the  disparagement  of  her  own  natural  man- 
ner, which  is  agreeable.     It  is  funny  to  see  her  bridling 
up  her  neck,  which  is  native  to  F.  K. ;  but  there  is  no 
setting  another's  manners    upon   one's    shoulders   any 
more  than  their  head.     I  am  glad  you  esteem   Man- 
ning, though  you  see  but  his  husk  or  shrine.     He  dis- 
closes not,  save  to  select  worshippers,  and  will  leave  the 
world  without  any  one  hardly  but  me  knowing  how 
stupendous  a  creature  he  is.     I  am  perfecting  myself  in 
the  '  Ode  to  Eaton  College  '  against  Thursday,  that  I 
may  not  appear  unclassic.     I  have  just  discovered  that 
It  is  much  better  than  the  '  Elegy.' 

"  In  haste,  C  L. 


»> 


408  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 

"  P.S.  —  I  do  not  know  what  to  say  to  your  latent 
theory  about  Nero  being  the  Messiah,  though  by  all 
accounts  he  was  a  'nointed  one." 

Lamb's  desire  for  dramatic  success  was  not  even  yet 
wholly  chilled.  In  this  summer  he  wrote  a  little  piece 
on  the  storv  of  Crabbe's  tale  of  the  "  Confidant," 
Avhich  was  never  produced,  but  ultimately  published  in 
"  Blackwood's  Magazine."  It  rims  on  agreeably  in 
melodious  blank  verse,  entirely  fi-ee  from  the  occasional 
roughnesses  of  "  John  Woodvil,"  but  has  not  sufficient 
breadth  or  point  for  the  stage.  He  alludes  to  it  in  the 
following  letter 


TO   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  Aug.  10th,  1827. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  I  have  not  been  able  to  answer  you, 
for  we  have  had,  and  are  having,  (I  just  snatch  a  mo- 
ment,) our  poor  quiet  retreat,  to  which  we  fled  from 
society,  full  of  company,  —  some  staying  with  us,  and 
this  moment,  as  I  write,  almost,  a  heavy  importation 
of  two  old  ladies  has  come  in.  Whither  can  I  take 
wing,  from  the  oppression  of  human  faces  ?  Would  I 
were  in  a  wilderness  of  apes,  tossing  cocoa-nuts  about, 
grinning  and  gi-inned  at ! 

"  M was  hoaxing  you,  surely,  about  my  engrav- 
ing ;  'tis  a  little  sixpenny  thing,  too  like  by  half,  in 
which  the  draughtsman  has  done  his  best  to  avoid  flat- 
tery. There  have  been  two  editions  of  it,  which  I 
think  are  all  gone,  as  they  have  vanished  from  the  win- 
dow where  they  hung,  —  a  print-shop,  corner  of  Great 
and  Little  Queen  Streets,  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  —  where 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  409 

any  London  friend  of  yours  may  inquire  for  it ;  for  I 
am  (though  you  wonH  understand  it)  at  Enfield  Chase. 
We  have  been  here  near  three  months,  and  shall  stay 
two  more,  if  people  will  let  us  alone  ;  but  they  perse- 
cute us  from  village  to  village.  So,  don't  direct  to 
Islington  again,  till  further  notice.  I  am  trying  my 
hand  at  a  drama,  in  two  acts,  founded  on  Crabbe's 
'  Confidant,'  mutatis  mntaiidis.  You  like  the  Odyssey ; 
did  you  ever  read  my  '  Adventures  of  Ulysses,'  fomided 
on  Chapman's  old  translation  of  it  ?  for  childi-en  or 
men.  Chapman  is  divine,  and  my  abridgment  has  not 
quite  emptied  him  of  his  divinity.  When  you  come  to 
town  I'll  show  it  you.  You  have  well  described  your 
old-fashioned  grand  paternal  hall.  Is  it  not  odd  that 
every  one's  earliest  recollections  are  of  some  such  place  ! 
I  had  my  Blakesware  (Blakesmoor  in  the  '  London'). 
Nothing  fills  a  child's  mind  like  a  large  old  mansion  ; 
better  if  un  —  or  partially  —  occupied  ;  peopled  with 
the  spirits  of  deceased  members  of  the  county,  and 
justices  of  the  quorum.  Would  I  were  buried  in  the 
peopled  solitudes  of  one,  with  my  feelings  at  seven  years 
old  !  Those  marble  busts  of  the  emperors,  they  seemed 
as  if  they  were  to  stand  forever,  as  they  had  stood 
from  the  living  days  of  Rome,  in  that  old  marble  hall, 
and  I  to  partake  of  their  permanency.  Eternity  was, 
while  I  thought  not  of  Time.  But  he  thought  of  me, 
and  they  are  toppled  down,  and  corn  covers  the  spot  of 
the  noble  old  dwelling  and  its  princely  gardens.  I  feel 
like  a  grasshopper  that  chirping  about  the  grounds, 
escaped  his  scythe  only  by  my  littleness.  Even  now 
he  is  whetting  one  of  his  smallest  razors  to  clean  wipe 
me  out,  perhaps.     Well ! " 


410  LETTERS   TO  BARTON. 

The  following  is  an  acknowledgment  of  some  verses 
whicli  Lamb  had  begged  for  Miss  Isola's  album. 


"  Aug.  28th,  1827. 

"  Dear  B.  B.,  —  I  am  thankful  to  you  for  your  ready 
compliance  with  my  wishes.  Emma  is  delighted  with 
your  verses  ;  I  have  sent  them,  with  four  album  poems 

of  my  own,  to  a  Mr.  F ,  who  is  to  be  editor  of  a 

more  superb  pocket-book  than  has  yet  appeared,  by  far ! 
the  property  of  some  wealthy  booksellers  ;  but  whom, 
or  what  its  name,  I  forgot  to  ask.  It  is  actually  to  have 
in  it  schoolboy  exercises  by  his  present  Majesty  and  the 
late  Duke  of  York.  Wordsworth  is  named  as  a  con- 
tributor.    F ,  whom  I  have  slightly  seen,  is  editor 

of  a  forthcome  or  coming  review  of  foreign  books, 
and  is  intimately  connected  with  Lockhart,  &c.  So  I 
take  it  that  this  is  a  concern  of  Murray's.  Walter 
Scott  also  contributes  mainly.  I  have  stood  off  a  long 
time  from  these  annuals,  which  are  ostentatious  trump- 
ery, but  could  not  withstand  the  request  of  Jameson,  a 
particular  friend  of  mine  and  Coleridge. 

"  I  shall  hate  myself  in  frippery,  strutting  along,  and 
vying  finery  with  beaux  and  belles,  with  '  future  Lord 
Byrons  and  sweet  L.  E.  Ls.'  Your  taste,  I  see,  is  less 
simple  than  mine,  which  the  difference  in  our  persua- 
sions has  doubtless  effected.  In  fact,  of  late  you  have 
so  Frenchified  your  style,  larding  it  with  hors  de  com- 
bats^ and  an  desopoirs,  that  o'  my  conscience  the  Foxian 
blood  is  quite  dried  out  of  you,  and  the  skipping  Mon- 
sJp'ir  spirit  has  been  infused. 

"  If  you  have  anything  you'd  like  to  send  further, 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  411 

I  dare  say  an  honorable  place  would  be  given  to  it ; 

but  I  have  not  heard  from  F since  I  sent  mine, 

nor  shall  probably  again,  and  therefore  I  do  not  sohcit 
it  as  from  him.     Yesterday  I  sent  off  my  tragicomedy 
to  Mr.  Kemble.     Wish  it  luck.     I  made  it  all  ('tis 
blank  verse,  and  I  think  of  the  true  old  dramatic  cut) 
or  most  of  it,  in  the  green  lanes  about  Enfield,  where 
I  am,  and  mean  to  remain,  in  spite  of  your  peremptory 
doubts  on  that  head.     Your  refusal  to  lend  your  poet- 
ical sanction  to  my  '  Icon,'  and  your  reasons  to  Evans, 
are  most  sensible.     Maybe  I  may  hit  on  a  hne  or  two 
of  my  own  jocular ;  maybe  not.     Do  you  never  Lon- 
donize  again  ?     I  should  hke  to  talk  over  old  poetry 
with  you,  of  which  I  have  much,  and  you,  I  think, 
little.     Do  your   Drummonds    allow  no  hohdays?     I 
would  willingly  come  and  work  for  you  a  three  weeks 
or  so,  to  let  you  loose.     Would  I  could  sell  or  give  you 
some  of  my  leisure  !     Positively,  the  best  thing  a  man 
can  have  to  do  is  nothing,  and  next  to  that  perhaps  — 
good  works.    I  am  but  poorl}dsh,  and  feel  myself  writing 
a  dull  letter ;  poorlyish  from  company ;  not  generally, 
for  I  never  was  better,  nor  took  more  walks,  fourteen 
miles  a  day  on  an  average,  with  a  sporting  dog.  Dash. 
You  wovild  not  know  the  plain  poet,  any  more  than  he 
doth  recognize  James  Naylor  trick'd  out  au  deserpoy 
(how  do  you  spell  it?). 

"  C.  Lamb." 

The  following  was  written  to  the  friend  to  whom 
Lamb  had  intrusted  Dash,  a  few  days  after  the  part- 
ing. 


412  LETTER  TO  PATMORE. 

TO  MR.  PATMORE. 

"  Mrs.  Leishman's,  Chase,  Enfield. 
"  Dear  P.,  —  Excuse  my  anxiety,  but  how  is  Dash  ? 

I  should  have  asked  if  Mrs.  P e  kept  her  rules, 

and  was  improving ;  but  Dash  came  uppermost.  The 
order  of  our  thoujrhts  should  be  the  order  of  our 
writing.  Goes  he  muzzled,  or  aperto  ore  ?  Are  his 
intellects  sound,  or  does  lie  wander  a  little  in  Ms 
conversation  ?  You  cannot  be  too  careful  to  watch 
the  first  symptoms  of  incoherence.  The  first  illogical 
snarl  he  makes,  to  St.  Luke's  with  him.  All  the  dogs 
here  are  going  mad,  if  you  believe  the  overseers ;  but 
I  protest  they  seem  to  me  very  rational  and  collected. 
But  nothing  is  so  deceitful  as  mad  people,  to  those 
who  are  not  used  to  them.  Try  him  with  hot  water : 
if  he  won't  lick  it  up  it  is  a  sign  —  he  does  not  like 
it.  Does  his  tail  wag  horizontally,  or  perpendicularly  ? 
That  has  decided  the  fate  of  many  dogs  in  Enfield. 
Is  his  general  deportment  cheerful  ?  I  mean  when  he 
is  pleased  —  for  otherwise  there  is  no  judging.  You 
can't  be  too  careful.  Has  he  bit  any  of  the  children 
yet  ?  If  he  has,  have  them  shot,  and  keep  him  for 
curiosity,  to  see  if  it  was  the  Iiydrophobia.  They 
say  all  our  army  in  India  had  it  at  one  time  ;  but 
that  was  in  Hyder-AWys  time.  Do  you  get  paunch 
for  him  ?  Take  care  the  sheep  was  sane.  You  might 
pull  out  his  teeth  (if  he  would  let  you),  and  then 
you  need  not  mind  if  he  were  as  mad  as  a  Bedlamite. 
It  would  be  rather  fun  to  see  his  odd  ways.     It  miglit 

amuse  Mrs.   P and  the  children.      They'd  have 

more  sense  than  he.  He'd  be  like  a  fool  kept  in  a 
family,   to  keep  the  household   in  good   humor  with 


LETTER  TO  PATMORE.  413 

their  own  understanding.  You  miglit  teach  him  the 
mad  dance,  set  to  the  mad  howl.  Madge  Owlet  would 
be  nothing  to  him.  '  My !  how  he  capers  ! '  \In  the 
margin  is  vrritten,  '  One  of  the  children  speaks  this* '] 
*  *  *  What  I  scratch  out  is  a  German  quotation, 
from   Lessing,   on  the  bite  of  rabid   animals ;    but    I 

remember  you  don't  read  German.     But  Mrs.  P 

may,  so  I  wish  I  had  let  it  stand.  The  meaning  in 
English  is  — '  Avoid  to  approach  an  animal  suspected 
of  madness,  as  you  would  avoid  fire  or  a  precipice,' 
which  I  think  is  a  sensible  observation.  The  Ger- 
mans are  certainly  profounder  than  we.  If  the  slight- 
est suspicion  arises  in  your  breast  that  all  is  not  right 
with  him,  muzzle  him  and  lead  him  in  a  string  (com- 
mon packthread  will  do  —  he  don't  care  for  t%A'ist) 
to  Mr.  Hood's,  his  quondam  master,  and  he'll  take 
him  in  at  any  time.  You  may  mention  your  suspicion, 
or  not,  as  you  like,  or  as  you  think  it  may  wound 
or  not  Mr.  H.'s  feelings.  Hood,  I  know,  will  wink 
at  a  few  follies  in  Dash,  in  consideration  of  his  former 
sense.  Besides,  Hood  is  deaf,  and,  if  you  hinted 
anything,  ten  to  one  he  would  not  hear  you.  Besides 
you  will  have  discharged  your  conscience,  and  laid 
the  child  at  the  right  door,  as  they  say. 

"  We  are  daAvdling  our  time  away  very  idly  and 
pleasantly  at  a  Mrs.  Leishman's,  Chase,  Enfield,  where, 
if  you  come  a-hunting,  we  can  give  you  cold  meat  and 
a  tankard.  Her  husband  is  a  tailor ;  but  that,  you 
know,  does  not  make  her  one.  I  knew  a  jailer  (which 
rhymes),  but  his  wife  was  a  fine  lady. 

"  Let  us  hear  from    you    respecting   Mrs.    P 's 

regimen.     I  sen'fl  my  love  in  a  to  Dash. 

"C.  Lamb." 

*  Here  three  lines  are  carefully  erased. 


414  LETTER  TO  BARTON. 

On  the  outside  of  the  letter  is  written  ; 

"  Seriously,  I  wish  you  would  call  upon  Hood  when 
you  are  that  way.  He's  a  capital  fellow.  I've  sent 
him  two  poems,  one  ordered  by  his  wife,  and  written  to 
order ;  and  'tis  a  week  since,  and  I've  not  heard  from 
him.     I  fear  something  is  the  matter. 

"  Our  kindest  remembrance  to  Mrs.  P." 

He  thus,  in  December,  expresses  his  misery  in  a 
letter 

TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"  December  4th,  1827. 

"My  dear  B.  B.,  —  I  have  scarce  spirits  to  write, 
yet  am  harassed  with  not  writing.  Nine  weeks  are 
completed,  and  Mary  does  not  get  any  better.  It  is 
perfectly  exhausting.  Enfield,  and  everything,  is  very- 
gloomy.  But  for  long  experience  I  should  fear  her 
ever  getting  well.  I  feel  most  thankful  for  the  spin- 
sterly  attentions  of  your  sister.  Thank  the  kind  '  knit- 
ter in  the  sim ! '  What  nonsense  seems  verse,  when 
one  is  seriously  out  of  hope  and  spirits  !  I  mean,  that 
at  this  time  I  have  some  nonsense  to  write,  under  pain 
of  incivility.  Would  to  the  fifth  heaven  no  coxcombess 
had  invented  Albums. 

"  I  have  not  had  a  Bijoux,  nor  the  slightest  notice 

from    about   omitting   four  out   of  five   of  my 

things.  The  best  thing  is  never  to  hear  of  such  a 
thing  as  a  bookseller  again,  or  to  think  there  are 
publishers.  Second-hand  stationers  and  old  bookstalls 
for  me.  Authorship  should  be  an  idea  of  the  past. 
Old  kings,  old  bishops  are   venerable  ;    all   present  is 


LETTER  TO   A  LADY.  415 

hollow.  I  cannot  make  a  letter.  I  have  no  straw,  not 
a  penny^vorth  of  chaff,  only  this  may  stop  your  kind 
importunity  to  know  about  us.  Here  is  a  comfortable 
house,  but  no  tenants.  One  does  not  make  a  house- 
hold. Do  not  think  I  am  quite  in  despair ;  but,  in 
addition  to  hope  protracted,  I  have  a  stupifying  cold 
and  obstructing  headache,  and  the  sun  is  dead. 

"  I  will  not  fail  to  apprise  you  of  the  revival  of  a 
beam.     Meantime  accept  this,  rather  than  think  I  have 
forgotten  you  all.     Best  remembrances. 
"  Yours  and  theirs  truly, 

"C.  Lamb." 

A  proposal  to  erect  a  memorial  to  Clarkson,  upon 
the  spot  by  the  wayside  .where  he  stopped  when  on  a 
journey  from  Cambridge  to  London,  and  formed  the 
great  resolution  of  devoting  his  life  to  the  abolition  of 
the  slave-trade,  produced  from  Lamb  the  following  let- 
ter to  the  lady  who  had  announced  it  to  him  :  — 

"  Dear  Madam,  —  I  return  your  list  with  my  name. 
I  should  be  sorry  that  any  respect  should  be  going 
on  towards  Clarkson,  and  I  be  left  out  of  the  con- 
spiracy. Otherwise  I  frankly  own  that  to  pillarize  a 
man's  good  feelings  in  his  lifetime  is  not  to  my  taste. 
Monuments  to  goodness,  even  after  death,  are  equiv- 
ocal. I  turn  away  from  Howard's,  I  scarce  know  why. 
Goodness  blows  no  trumpet,  nor  desires  to  have  it 
blown.  We  should  he  modest  for  a  modest  man  —  as  he 
is  for  himself.  The  vanities  of  life  —  art,  poetry,  skill 
military  —  are  subjects  for  trophies  ;  not  tlie  silent 
thoughts  arising  in  a  good  man's  mind  in  lonely  places. 
Was  I  Clarkson,  I  should  never  be  able  to  walk  or  ride 


416  LETTER  TO  A  LADY. 

near  the  spot  again.  Instead  of  bread,  we  are  gi^ang 
him  a  stone.  Instead  of  the  locality  recalling  the 
noblest  moment  of  his  existence,  it  is  a  place  at  which 
his  friends  (that  is,  himself)  blow  to  the  world,  '  What 
a  good  man  is  he !  '  I  sat  down  upon  a  liillock  at 
Forty  Hill  yesternight, — a  fine  contemplative  evening, 
—  with  a  thousand  good  speculations  about  mankind. 
How  I  yearned  with  cheap  benevolence  !  I  shall  go 
and  inquire  of  the  stonecutter,  that  cuts  the  tombstones 
here,  what  a  stone  with  a  short  inscription  will  cost ; 
just  to  say,  '  Here  C.  Lamb  loved  his  brethren  of 
mankind.'  Everybody  will  come  there  to  love.  As  I 
can't  well  put  my  own  name,  I  shall  put  about  a  sub- 
scription : 


Mrs. 

.  ^0 

5 

0 

Procter 

0 

2 

6 

G.  Dyer  . 

.     0 

1 

0 

Mr.  Godwin 

0 

0 

0 

Mrs.  Godwin 

.      0 

0 

0 

Mr.  L-ving 

• 

a  watch-chain. 
(   the  proceeds  of — 

Mr. .        . 

• 

1      first  edition. 

£0     8     6 


"  I  scribble  in  haste  from  here,  where  we  shall  be 

some  time.     Pray  request  Mr.  to   advance  the 

guinea  for  me,  which  shall  faithfiilly  be  forthcoming, 
and  pardon  me  that  I  don't  see  the  proposal  in  quite 
the  light  that  he  may.  The  kindness  of  his  motives, 
and  his  power  of  appreciating  the  noble  passage,  I 
thoroughly  agree  in. 

"  With  most  kind  jregards  to  him,  I  conclude 
"  Dear  madam,  jitfttfai  truly, 


f  ^  "  C.  Lamb." 

"  From  Mrs.  Leishman's,  Chase,  Enfi^ff ' 

P 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  417 

The    following    appears    to    have    been    written   in 
October,  1828, 


TO    BERNARD    BARTON. 

"  Oct.  11th,  1828. 

"  A  splendid  edition  of '  Bunyan's  Pilgrim  ! '  Why, 
the  thought  is  enough  to  turn  one's  moral  stomach. 
His  cockle-hat  and  staff  transformed  to  a  smart  cock'd 
beaver,  and  a  jemmy  cane ;  his  amice  gray,  to  the  last 
Regent  Street  cut :  and  his  painful  palmer's  pace  to  the 
modem  swagger.  Stop  thy  friend's  sacrilegious  hand. 
Nothing  can  be  done  for  B.  but  to  reprint  the  old  cuts 
in  as  homely  but  good  a  style  as  possible.  The  Vanity 
Fair,  and  the  Pilgrims  there  —  the  Silly-soothness  in 
his  setting-out  countenance  —  the  Christian  Idiocy 
(in  a  good  sense),  of  his  admiration  of  the  shepherds 
on  the  Delectable  Mountains ;  the  lions,  so  truly  alle- 
gorical, and  remote  from  any  similitude  to  Pidcock's ; 
the  great  head  (the  author's),  capacious  of  dreams  and 
similitudes,  dreaming  in  the  dungeon.  Perhaps  you 
don't  know  my  edition,  what  I  had  when  a  child.  If 
you  do,  can  you  bear  new  designs  from  Martin,  enam- 
elled into  copper  or  silver  plate  by  Heath,  accompanied 
with  verses  from  Mrs.  Hemans'  pen.  O  how  unhke 
his  own  ! 

Wouldst  thou  divert  thyself  from  melancholy  ? 
Wouldst  thou  be  pleasant,  yet  be  far  from  folly  ? 
Wouldst  thou  read  riddles,  and  their  explanation  ? 
Or  else  be  drowned  in  thy  contemplation  ? 
Dost  thou  love  picking  meat  ?  ^wouldst  thou  see 
A  man  i'  the  clo^^,  and  hear  1^  speak  to  thee  ? 
Wouldst  thou  Be?^"  dream,  ancTyet  not  sleep  ? 
Or  wouldst  thou  inJaJRaoment  laVigh  and  weep? 
Or  wouldst  thou  lij^^hyself  ancTeatch  no  harm, 
And  find  thyself  agS^n  without  a  charm? 

VOL.   I.  97 


418  LETTERS   TO   BARTON. 

Wouldst  read  thyself,  and  read  thou  knowest  not  what, 
And  yet  know  whether  thou  art  blest  or  not 
By  reading  the  same  lines  ?    0  then  come  hither, 
And  lay  my  book,  thy  head,  and  heart  together. 

John  Bunyan. 

Show  me  such  poetry  in  any  one  of  the  fifteen  forth- 
coming combinations  of  show  and  emptiness,  yclept 
'Annuals.'  So  there's  verses  for  thy  verses;  and 
now  let  me  tell  you,  that  the  sight  of  your  hand 
gladdened  me.  I  have  been  daily  trying  to  write  to 
you,  but  paralyzed.  You  have  spurred  me  on  this 
tiny  effort,  and  at  intervals  I  hope  to  hear  from  and 
talk  to  you.  But  my  spirits  have  been  in  an  opprest 
way  for  a  long  time,  and  they  are  things  which  must 
be  to  you  of  faith,  for  who  can  explain  depression  ? 
Yes,  I  am  hooked  into  the  '  Gem,'  but  only  for  some 
lines  written  on  a  dead  infant  of  the  Editor's  which 
being,  as  it  were,  his  property,  I  could  not  refuse  their 
appearing  ;  but  I  hate  the  paper,  the  type,  the  gloss, 
the  dandy  plates,  the  names  of  contributors  poked 
up  into  your  eyes  in  first  page,  and  whisked  through 
all  the  covers  of  magazines,  the  barefaced  sort  of 
emulation,  the  immodest  candidateship.  Brought  into 
so  little  space  —  in  those  old  '  Londons,'  a  signature 
was  lost  in  the  wood  of  matter,  the  paper  coarse  (till 
latterly,  which  spoiled  them)  ;  in  short,  I  detest  to 
appear  in  an  Annual.  What  a  fertile  genius  (and  a 
quiet  good  soul  withal)  is  Hood  !  He  has  fifty  things 
in  hand  ;  farces  to  supply  the  Adelphi  for  the  season ; 
a  comedy  for  one  of  the  great  theatres,  just  ready  ; 
a  whole  entertainment  by  himself,  for  Mathews  and 
Yates  to  figure  in  ;  a  meditated  Comic  Annual  for 
next  year,  to  be  neai'ly  done  by  himself.  You'd  like 
him  very  much. 


LETTERS  TO  BARTON.  419 

"  Wordsworth,  I  see,  has  a  good  many  pieces  an- 
nounced m  one  of  'em,  not  our  Gem.  \V.  Scott  has 
distributed  himself  like  a  bribe  haunch  among  'em. 
Of  all  the  poets,  Gary  has  had  the  good  sense  to  keep 
quite  clear  of  'em,  with  clergy-gentle-manly  right  no- 
tions. Don't  think  I  set  up  for  being  proud  on  this 
point ;  I  like  a  bit  of  flattery,  tickling  my  vanity,  as 
well  as  any  one.  But  these  pompous  masquerades 
without  masks  (naked  names  or  faces)  I  hate.  So 
there's  a  bit  of  my  mind.  Besides  they  infallibly  cheat 
you ;  I  mean  the  booksellers.  If  I  get  but  a  copy,  I 
only  expect  it  from  Hood's  being  my  friend.  Gole- 
ridge  has  lately  been  here.  He  too  is  deep  among  the 
prophets,  the  year-servers,  —  the  mob  of  gentlemen 
annuals.  But  they  '11  cheat  him,  I  know.  And  now, 
dear  B.  B.,  the  sim  shining  out  merrily,  and  the  dirty 
clouds  we  had  yesterday  having  washed  their  own 
faces  clean  with  their  own  rain,  tempts  me  to  wander 
up  Winchmore  Hill,  or  into  some  of  the  delightful 
vicinages  of  Enfield,  which  I  hope  to  show  you  at 
some  time  when  you  can  get  a  few  days  up  to  the 
great  town.  Believe  me,  it  would  give  both  of  us 
great  pleasure  to  show  you  our  pleasant  farms  and 
villages. 

"  We  both  join  in  kindest  loves  to  you  and  yours. 

"  G.  Lamb,   redivivus.^' 

The  following  is  of  December,  and  closes  the  letters 
which  remain  of  this  year. 


420  LETTERS  TO  BARTON. 


TO  BERNARD  BARTON. 

"Dec.  5th,  1828. 

"Dear  B.  B., — I  am  ashamed  to  receive  so  many- 
nice  books  from  you,  and  to  have  none  to  send  you  in 
return.     You  are  always    sending  me  some   fruits  or 
vrholesome   pot-herbs,  and  mine  is  the  garden  of  the 
Sluggard,  nothing  but  weeds,  or  scarce  they.     Never- 
theless, if  I  knew  how  to  transmit  it,  I  would  send  you 
Blackwood's   of   this    month,   wliich    contains    a   little 
drama,  to  have  your  opinion  of  it,  and  how  far  I  have 
improved,  or  otherwise,  upon   its   prototype.      Thank 
you  for  your  kind  sonnet.     It  does  me  good  to  see  the 
Dedication  to  a  Christian  Bishop.     I  am  for  a  compre- 
hension, as  divines  call  it ;  but  so  as  that  the  Church 
shall  go  a  good  deal  more  than  half  way  over  to  the 
silent  Meeting-house.     I  have  ever  said  that  the  Qua- 
kers are  the  only  professors  of  Christianity,  as  I  read  it 
in  the  Evangiles  ;  I  say  professors  —  marry,  as  to  prac- 
tice, with  their  gaudy  hot  types  and  poetical  vanities, 
they  are  much  as  one  with  the  sinful.     Martin's  Fron- 
tispiece is  a  very  fine   thing,  let   O.  L.  say  what  he 
please  to  the  contrary.     Of  the  Poems,  I  like  them  as 
a  volume,  better  than  any  one  of  the  preceding ;  par- 
ticularly, '  Power   and    Gentleness '  —  '  The  Present ' 
■ —  '  Lady  Russell ; '  with  the  exception  that  I  do  not 
like  the  noble  act  of  Curtius,  true  or  false  —  one  of  the 
grand  foundations  of  the  old  Roman  patriotism  —  to  be 
sacrificed  to  Lady  R.'s  taking  notes  on  her  husband's 
trial.     If  a  thing  is  good,  why  invidiously  bring  it  into 
licrht  with  something  better  ?     There  are  too  few  heroic 
things  in  this  world,  to  admit  of  our  marshalling  them 
in  anxious  etiquettes  of  precedence.     Would  you  make 


LETTERS   TO   BARTON.  421 

a  poem  on  the  story  of  Ruth,  (pretty  story  ! )  and  then 
say  —  Ay,  but  how  much  better  is  the  story  of  Joseph 
and  his  brethren  !  To  go  on,  the  stanzas  to  '  Chalon  ' 
want  the  name  of  Clarkson  in  the  body  of  them  ;  it  is 
left  to  inference.  The  '  Battle  of  Gibeon  '  is  spirited, 
ao-ain  ;  but  you  sacrifice  it  in  last  stanza  to  the  song  at 
Bethlehem.  Is  it  quite  orthodox  to  do  so  ?  The  first 
was  good,  you  suppose,  for  that  dispensation.  Why  set 
the  word  against  the  word  ?  It  puzzles  a  weak  Chris- 
tian. So  Watts'  Psalms  are  an  implied  censure  on 
David's.  But  as  long  as  the  Bible  is  supposed  to  be 
an  equally  divine  emanation  with  the  Testament,  so 
long  it  will  stagger  weaklings  to  have  them  set  in 
opposition.  '  Godiva  '  is  delicately  touched.  I  have 
always  thought  it  a  beautiful  story,  characteristic  of 
the  old  English  times.  But  I  could  not  help  amusing 
myself  with  the  thought  —  if  Martin  had  chosen  this 
subject  for  a  frontispiece  —  there  would  have  been  in 
some  dark  comer  a  white  lady,  white  as  the  walker  on 
the  waves,  riding  upon  some  mystical  quadimped  ;  and 
hio-h  above  would  have  risen  '  tower  above  tower  a 
massy  structure  high '  —  the  Tenterden  steeples  of 
Coventry,  till  the  poor  cross  would  scarce  have  known 
itself  among  the  clouds ;  and  far  above  them  all  the 
distant  Clint  hills  peering  over  chimney-pots,  piled  up, 
Ossa-on-Olympus  fashion,  till  the  admirmg  spectator 
(admirer  of  a  noble  deed)  might  have  gone  look  for 
the  lady,  as  you  must  hunt  for  the  other  in  the  lobster. 
But  M.  should  be  made  royal  architect.  What  palaces 
he  .would  pile  !  But  then,  what  parliamentary  grants 
to  make  them  good  !  Nevertheless,  I  like  the  fi'ontis- 
piece.  '  The  Elephant '  is  pleasant ;  and  I  am  glad 
you  are  getting  into  a  wider  scope  of  subjects.     There 


422  LETTERS    TO   BARTON. 

may  be  too  much,  not  religion,  but  too  many  good 
words  in  a  book,  till  it  becomes  a  rhapsody  of  words. 
T  will  just  name,  that  you  have  brought  in  the  '  Song 
to  the  Shepherds  '  in  four  or  five,  if  not  six  places. 
Now  this  is  not  good  economy.  The  '  Enoch  '  is  fine  ; 
and  here  I  can  sacrifice  '  Elijah '  to  it,  because  'tis 
illustrative  only,  and  not  disparaging  of  the  latter 
prophet's  departure.  I  like  this  best  in  the  book. 
Lastly,  I  much  like  the  '  Heron ; '  'tis  exquisite. 
Know  you  Lord  Thurlow's  Sonnet  to  a  bird  of  that 
sort  on  Lacken  water?  If  not,  'tis  indispensable  I 
send  it  you,  with  my  Blackwood.  '  Fludyer '  is  pleas- 
ant,—  you  are  getting  gay  and  Hoodish.  What  is 
the  enigma  ?     Money  ?     If  not,  I  fairly  confess  I  am 

foiled,  and  sphynx  must eat  me.     Four   times 

I've  tried  to  write — eat  me,  and  the  blotting  pen  turns 
it  into  —  cat  me.  And  now  I  will  take  my  leave  with 
saying,  I  esteem  thy  verses,  like  thy  present,  honor  thy 
frontispicer,  and  right  reverence  thy  patron  and  dedi- 
catee, and  am,  dear  B.  B., 

"  Yours  heartily,  C.  Lamb." 


END   OF   VOL.  1. 


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